


Iustitia & Prudentia

by skeptique



Series: Of Virtues [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Auror Harry Potter, Bisexual Harry Potter, Calling Their Person, Canon Content Warnings Apply, Canon Typical Violence, Case Fic, Confinement, Discussion of Ongoing Food Related Issues, Draco Malfoy in Glasses, Everyone is going to Therapy, Gay Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Healer Draco Malfoy, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Kidnapping, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Minor Character Death, Mystery, Pansexual Theo Nott, Post-Hogwarts, Post-War, Procedural That's Fairly Light on the Procedural Part, Redeemed Draco Malfoy, Slow Burn, Taking their Meds, brief discussion of infertility
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:36:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 36,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25470997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skeptique/pseuds/skeptique
Summary: Draco Malfoy’s entire life fell apart after the War. He’s putting it back together as best he can with what is available to him. But Harry keeps interfering and won’t leave him alone. When he agrees to be an Auror consultant to help Harry, is it more than he bargained for?The world shifted under Harry Potter’s feet and he found himself lost and purposeless. He anchors himself in uncovering the truth about a dangerous pureblood terrorist group.  Is Draco the key to solving these crimes, or is he a distraction?
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Series: Of Virtues [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1844986
Comments: 85
Kudos: 227





	1. i. Great Expectations

**Author's Note:**

> I have shied away from graphic descriptions. If you need more chapter-specific or detailed warnings for any of the above, please let me know and I will try. 
> 
> People to whom I owe very much are my delightful betas ladyemmaline, startledredhead and fayezer who lifted me up with edits and encouragement. Hello to all my pocketfriends.
> 
> I read A LOT of fic, but my Pansy in particular owes a lot to the Bucket List by GallaPlacidia. Every chapter name is a book Draco would have read. Please enjoy the fruits of the labour of a very stressed Black woman looking for an outlet. Death of the author in effect. Protect, support and cherish trans kids. 
> 
> Come talk to me on [tumblr](https://skeptiquewrites.tumblr.com/)

_September 1998_

Azkaban was damp, acrid smelling and dismal, but at least there were no Dementors now. The most conversation Draco had was with the wizard who handed him a tasteless grey nutritional paste disguised as oatmeal three times a day. Something about the complete lack of scent made him think they laced it with enchantments and potions. Probably meant to make him docile. He ate it anyway. He had several long, pointless conversations with his Ministry-assigned lawyer. 

When they replaced his food with greying beef and some limp carrots about a month later, he knew he was right. It was illegal for that kind of magic to be in your system before the courts. Draco couldn’t possibly tell what difference it was supposed to make. The robes they gave him were serviceably warm but worn and off-black. 

They left the island in a rowboat. Draco glimpsed himself in the water. He looked haunted to his own eyes. There were dark under-eye circles and chapped lips. He looked more like Lucius than he ever had before, which he did not expect at all. 

They tried to give him a little time with the public defender and his mother. He waved both off and sat alone with a Magical Law Enforcement officer in a side room in the dungeons of the Ministry. She was a short but sturdy woman, who seemed to be constantly muttering under her breath but thankfully, didn’t seem to want to talk to him any more than he wanted to talk to her. 

He should be worried or scared, but the last two years had burned both emotions out of his blood entirely. All Draco felt was vaguely sick to his stomach and numb. He didn’t look up as they walked him into court but stared at the stone floor.

The Chief Warlock was Griselda Marchbanks, and he didn’t even have to look up to recognize her gravelly voice. 

“In this special session of the Wizengamot for the Reconciliation of the Second Wizarding War, the Court accuses you of crimes against wizardkind during war time, terrorism, intentionally inflicting distress on Muggles and muggleborns, use of Unforgivables, and other inhumane acts. How do you plead?”

Draco cleared his throat and focused on the hem of her purple robes to stop the bile in the back of his throat from washing into his mouth.

“Guilty.”

There was shifting in the benches, as if they thought he would have tried his father’s gambit and lied that he had been under an Imperius the entire time. Draco didn’t have the energy and didn’t see the point. No one was buying it, and if they were, all the assets he could use to find a better lawyer to suggest it were impounded somewhere in a special vault. This time, they knew better than to allow Malfoy money to influence things.

All the rest passed in a blur. 

“Owing to the circumstances of these trials, Mr. Malfoy, and mitigated by the fact you were young and under undue influence and a statement submitted by Ms. Granger and Mr. Potter about heroic acts to save lives with significant risk to yourself while under the influence of Voldemort, you are eligible for the pilot diversion program for five years.”

“Many in the court feel that this is exceptionally lenient considering your crimes. However, we have agreed that reconciliation must mean an effort to re-integrate those lesser criminals involved in the Death Eaters.” Whispers broke out. Lesser meant next to nothing under the circumstances and Draco got the distinct feeling not everyone agreed. 

“You may also serve a sentence of five years less the time already served in Azkaban. It is your choice. No matter your choice, you will have to make a payment of restitution of 15,000 Galleons for the victims' fund.”

Draco looked directly at Griselda Marchbanks for the first time. Her eyes were kinder than he expected and she paused as if waiting for him to speak. His mind whirled with the possibilities that diversion could mean. What was so bad they would forgo Azkaban for it? He wished he had taken that pre-trial meeting with the public defender. It didn’t matter.

“I choose the program.” 

Somehow, he hadn’t believed they would allow him to walk away, but they released the magical restraints and the same officer walked him back to a side room where his mother paced. 

Narcissa Malfoy was wearing brand new velvet robes, perfume under-laced with the subtle scent of Pepper-Up Potion, a decent makeup glamour and hair in elaborate braids forming a crown. Her face was unreadable until she saw him. Every lesson she had ever taught him echoed in Draco’s head: never leave the house without looking presentable, back straight and chin high, and guard your feelings closely.

She reached a hand out to cup his chin like he was a boy again and her eyes were brimming with tears. 

“Draco, dearest.” And then she broke all of her rules and hauled him to her, though he was taller than her. She took a deep, shaky breath. She was thinner than he remembered, but when was the last time they held each other like this? Probably as he was arrested and before that, the night Voldemort died. 

“Azkaban?” She breathed, barely daring to ask the question. 

“No,” He shook his head. “A special program.”

“Thank Merlin.” He thought she muttered something like ‘smarter than your father’ but he was not sure. 

He had to live like a Muggle for five years. That’s all. He would rather not, but it was a far cry from what his imagination came up with. 

“You’ll be in Muggle London. We have secured you employment and a residence. You are required to check in once a week with an officer and twice a week with a counsellor. You are not permitted to use magic, carry a wand or visit any Wizarding establishment or community.” 

The witch who spoke at his information session was impatient and talked at a rapid clip while stamping pieces of paper and getting his signature, wand and fingerprints. His hand shook slightly, handing over his replacement wand from Switzerland. 

“Am I allowed to contact my parents?” The witch looked at him like he was being ridiculous.

“You may use the muggle post which connects to the public Owl network or a telephone. Your correspondence will be monitored. In an emergency, you’ll have a way to contact the Department. Your supervisor will be with you shortly.” 

She handed him a package thick with documents and hurried out into another room. With no supervisor in sight, he carefully opened the package. There was a thick sheaf of official-looking identification papers and cards for a Drake Malloy: birth certificate, national identification number and bank card. On the bright side, they were all labelled with a brief explanation because he had no fucking clue what any of those things were or what they were used for.

Draco puzzled over his National Art Pass and why on earth something like that would be in his package when a wizard walked in. He was tall, taller than Draco even, deep tawny skin, short curly hair, hazel eyes and...handsome he realized belatedly, in a way that made Draco uncomfortable because it was so foreign to him. His mouth went dry. The wizard looked familiar, Draco just couldn’t place him.

“Hitwizard Gabriel Warbeck, at your service.” His tone seemed playful, gently mocking Draco for staring, but that didn’t stop him from doing it or stop the slow heat crawling up the back of his neck. He had not _wanted_ the way he wanted while looking at Hitwizard Warbeck in a long time. He gathered his wits about him. 

“Mr. Warbeck.” Draco inclined his head slightly, with his hands behind his back clasped firmly at the elbows. It was an old Pureblood gesture of respect, but he fell back on those manners when he had nothing else.

“Just call me Gabe.” Gabriel put a hand on his shoulder as a friendly gesture. A shiver passed through Draco, but if Gabriel noticed he didn't react. “Ravenclaw, but I think I’m four or five years older than you. Shall we?”

They passed through some lesser-known hallways in the Ministry and ended up by the lifts before Gabriel spoke again.

“The Statute of Secrecy still applies. If you have any trouble, you may call me. Instructions on using your home phone are in the package. You will check in with me once a week. Make sure you respond to our wellness checks.”

They travelled in a private floo to a flat. His flat, presumably. Plain, lots of dingy linoleum and beige curtains, very muggle. His living room had a couch and some electronic box. No art. No carpet. His kitchen had one pot, one pan, and a gas stove that probably did not have a self-lighting spell. Not that he could cook. 

“Oh, and one last thing.” Gabriel pulled out a silver bracelet, engraved with enchantments. “It mutes your magic.” 

Gabriel placed it on his wrist and the bracelet shrunk and disappeared. It didn’t feel like anything. Not like the potions to stuff down magic and make it undetectable that tasted like copper and regret. Gabe smiled and Draco felt like he should crawl into a hole. 

The muggle backstory they concocted was almost amusing. His boss was told he was an escaped member of a cult, fragile and in recovery. Not untrue in some ways. 

“Drake, my name is Eustace,” His new boss said a few days later.  
  
Eustace was a foot shorter than Draco with a full head of white hair. Draco would peg him somewhere between fifty and seventy if he had to guess. He would find out soon, he was sure. Eustace was extremely chatty and did not seem to need his input to continue speaking. 

“I’m named after my grandfather, but he didn’t much like my father. I think my Da hoped it would make him think better of him, but it didn’t work. Also, my grandfather hated anyone who idled around reading books rather than doing something useful. So it’s a bit funny, isn’t it? Also, not good for any nicknames.”  
  
He led Draco further into the cramped used bookshop. It was, politely, a real fucking mess. He couldn’t tell by looking how the books were organized, and he had to navigate carefully to avoid tripping over stacks on the floor at random intervals and heights. 

“Decided that I needed a bit of help since the grandkids came along but I’m the only one who knows where everything is!” Eustace laughed loudly. 

Over the next few weeks, Draco got into a routine. Every morning, he tried to make coffee, and it went badly because there was no magic. He could not cook, so whatever mess of coffee he made was his breakfast. He generally managed to make himself a sandwich for lunch.

At the moment someone sent him groceries, but his package said the Ministry expected him to shop with the bank card starting next month. Did the shop take the card and he would get another every time? He didn’t know. After burning food a few times, he alternated between pot noodle, spaghetti and salads for dinner. 

Every day he walked the half hour from his flat to the bookshop because he was honestly frightened of all the people he saw milling into the Underground station. He hadn’t realized how many of them there were. 

Often he overheard snippets of their lives and conversations. “If you’re being naughty, we won’t go to the park later,” a mother told her young toddler, who threw himself on the ground and wailed. 

“You keep talking to Indie and her brother will beat you up!” A group of boys had yelled another morning. They shoved each other around for a second and proceeded to their school. Their conversations were so...ordinary. It surprised him.

“You can sort the books any way you like. We’re closed for the summer.” Eustace said. 

Every single day Draco sweated hauling boxes of books up and down the stairs, reading the front pages for basic information, then sorting them in sections. He was unfamiliar with all of them. He had never, to his knowledge, read a Muggle book at all. Sometimes when he finished a particularly grueling task, he’d sit behind the counter and read passages at random until Eustace caught him. 

“You can take anything you’d like to read home,” Eustace said. 

So he did. During his evenings, he learned to turn on and then watch television even though he understood none of the shows, wrote to his mother, and read something until it was about time for bed. When he couldn’t stand to be idle, he would do push-ups in his bedroom until his arms gave out.

Once a week Gabriel would come over and inspect his flat for contraband. Gabe did him the courtesy of at least pretending he was checking how things were coming along although he did genuinely seem delighted to find out Draco had learned how to use the phone. 

Twice a week Draco answered incredibly invasive questions from mind healer Melinda Bar de Houck. She was a witch, but one who seemed perfectly at ease with the Muggle world. She was in her mid-forties, spoke English with a slight German burr and had a collection of cardigans and pins that Draco, despite himself, liked. Her office was a brisk 40-minute walk from the bookshop in a small plaza. 

“Do you think about what happened?” She asked at the end of the fourth session. It was too early for probing spells and Pensieves, she had said. Melinda was in an emerald green cardigan with a tiny pin that said ‘persist’ in bright red cursive script. 

“I dream of it most nights,” Draco answered, opting to look out her office’s window. Trees mostly blocked the view. He watched the branches of the closest linden tree scratch the panes. 

“Is it the same dream all the time?” Melinda asked. 

“No. But it always feels the same,” He responded. 

“Can you describe one, Draco?”  
  
Draco paused for a long moment. He knew she would let the silence stretch until he ran out the entire hour. In the beginning, he had tried that twice. Almost as a trick, expecting her to chastise him for not taking part and wasting her time. But she sat there quietly with him. She knitted, she told him stories about hikes she’d been on and vacations she hoped to take and sometimes read a book. So he described one. Then another.  
  
Melinda assigned him writing exercises. She talked a lot about trauma. 

“Take responsibility. But remember that you went through things yourself and you also have to deal with that,” she would tell him. “You know, you can take a potion for the sleep issues. They are not habit forming, and I think it would help you function better. If you ever want to try.”

“No,” He repeated it every time she mentioned the potions. The ones for sleep. Another when he mentioned being scared of dark, enclosed spaces so he always ran up from the basement of the shop.

“It’s sensible that I’d be afraid. It’s not a disorder,” He scoffed. She made a listening _hmmm_ but didn’t press.

After a year, he took her up on a single potion to try. He wanted to sleep uninterrupted. He wanted to make some progress. He wanted to be a better person, or at least one who wouldn’t have put himself here. But it was difficult to say he wasn’t sure he deserved it.


	2. ii. Remembrance of Things Past

_July 2002_

Harry had gone through Auror training because it seemed the correct thing to do. Everyone expected it of him. He graduated with top honours after three years, although he had the uncomfortable feeling that even if he hadn’t sweated and bled and cried beside his classmates, they would have awarded him a commendation anyway. No instructor went easy on him, and for many it was quite the opposite. 

But people still treated him so carefully, even people who had known him before he became the “Saviour” twice over. 

It was when Harry started working that he just wilted. Not under the pressure, but after realizing the job was less than he wanted. He liked some things: putting together pieces of information, asking questions to witnesses, recreating scenes of crimes and writing reports. 

He did not like being hunched in cold alleys waiting for nothing to happen for no reason anyone would tell him. He felt conflicted about midnight raids and relying on a split second instinct that often left him to wonder if he hadn’t fulfilled Dumbledore’s dearest wish and become a weapon and not a person. 

Much of the time he had no context for why he was doing what he did. It was typical for a newbie, but it bothered him that Harry sometimes wouldn’t know until months later who they were tracking or why it was urgent to decommission an object. Sometimes he never found out. 

“Well, what do you want to do, Harry?” Ginny had asked him several times. No matter where the fight started: whose turn to wash the dishes or attending a party or how long she’d be away or living somewhere other than Grimmauld, it always ended on this topic.

“Sometimes I don’t even think you chose me!” Ginny snapped once. 

The breakup didn’t surprise Harry, but it shocked him she wasn’t more angry with him. Harry felt distinctly that it should hurt more than it did, but it was like he was underwater, watching himself going through the motions. Saturday breakfast with the Weasleys, Sunday lunch with Ron and Hermione. Four days on Auror shifts, mostly surveillance. Three days off. 

“I hope you talk to someone,” Ginny had touched his shoulder lightly then took the last of her things from his place. 

“What’s going on with you and Gin?” Ron asked next Saturday at the Burrow before breakfast had started. Ginny had written Molly to say she was unwell and wouldn’t be coming down from training camp this weekend. 

“She hasn’t said anything? She broke up with me,” Harry murmured while they set the table. Molly dropped the kettle she had been floating over to the table. Harry flicked a freezing charm before the boiling water splashed on someone. Molly abruptly exited the room on the verge of tears. 

“Well, fuck.” Ron said. Hermione busied herself trying to clean up. 

It was a tense, awkward meal from then on until Arthur and Molly cornered Harry. 

“I hope you know that you’re still a part of this family and you will always be welcome here,” Arthur said. 

“We are disappointed,” Molly sniffed. “But we know it’s for the best. You will come on Saturdays, won’t you, Harry?” 

Harry agreed. But he hadn’t even really thought through the implications of the breakup. They were her family, not his. No matter what they said. He flooed home. Ginny owled him back after his missive.

_Look, if you don’t show up to brunch Mum will assume I told you not to, so could you please keep coming? I am fond of you, as a friend. You've been a part of our family for years. You don’t have to be sorry we want different things. I promise I actually could not come down this week from Harpies practice. Please try not to be weirdo about this._

_Ginny_

He spent the rest of the weekend alternately drinking some gin he had found in Sirius’ wardrobe and playing terrible pop music on the wireless that kind of reminded him of being in pubs right after the War. 

Harry knew he hadn't missed Ginny the way he should. He felt her absence in being alone at home more than he thought about her.

To make it worse, Head Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt had summoned Harry to his office the following Monday. Harry was presented with a letter that approved his non-existent request for paid administrative leave. 

“You’ll be taking time away because I like you, Harry. You’re a fine Auror. I don’t have issues with your job performance. But I have seen what is happening with you happen to other people as clever and good. This job can break you if you let it,” Kingsley said. 

“I don’t think I have to take leave. I can do whatever it is you need from me while I’m here,” Harry protested. 

“Not for me, for yourself,” Kingsley said. Harry fought the instinct to roll his eyes. 

“Look at me, Potter. You _will_ fail your psychological profile in your yearly review as it stands. I believe in your ability to do this job, but you will not endanger yourself under my watch. You are not well. We can agree or we can disagree, but you will walk out of here without your badge today either way,” Kingsley said. 

Harry reminded himself that sitting here instead of receiving a slip was a sign of favour, and he was wasting it. He swallowed the rest of his reflexive contrariness.

“Yes, sir. I will take leave. Thank you sir,” Harry said. The second sir was probably overkill. 

Kingsley’s voice had softened a little when he spoke again. 

“After everything you went through, I should have insisted on addressing your mental health before you finished training. I made an exception for you, assuming that because you were fine right after that you would always be fine. That was poor judgement on my part.”

Why did it sound like Kingsley was apologizing to him? Kingsley reached into his desk and handed him a card for a mind healer. 

“If you would like to speak any time in the next year, my door is open to you. I’ve let most people know you are on special assignment,” Harry nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

“Patience has been hoping you might come for dinner again.”

The card was still sitting on Harry’s kitchen table at Grimmauld and it had been at least a month. If Kreacher had been alive, it would have been filed away at least. Instead it gathered dust. 

_August 3, 2002_

It was drizzling heavily as Harry made his way through Edmonton Green, ducking from shop to shop. He had forgotten his umbrella and raincoat. The streets were crowded enough on a Tuesday afternoon that he couldn’t just Apparate out of there. His toes squelched horribly in his trainers and he idly fantasized about throwing them out to walk barefoot. 

Harry had taken to these walks because Wizarding London sometimes felt too small. Being recognized always made him feel vaguely guilty, especially now. He knew he was not living up to whatever people expected of him. Last week, a witch had cornered him on his morning walk by Grimmauld to talk about the policies of the Second Reconstruction, and he hadn’t found a way to explain that he had not been following much of anything lately. 

As he shivered under the awning of yet another shop on his way to the local apparition point, he peered into a window to see someone familiar. He could swear it was Draco Malfoy. He watched for a moment to be certain. Malfoy remained tall and willowy, white blond hair pulled back in a bun. If it hadn’t been for the hair, he might have decided it was some other man in chinos and a black t-shirt, chatting with two coworkers. The older man clapped Draco on the shoulder and they both laughed at something.

Harry Potter intellectually understood that Draco Malfoy was out in Muggle London, as he had been paying attention to the Prophet when the sentencing happened a few years ago. But it was something else entirely to see the evidence with his own eyes. 

They locked eyes only briefly. Harry opened the door to Forwellsteads at the same time as Draco moved towards the door, a wary expression on his face. 

“Potter?” Draco said, first. 

“Yes.” Harry didn’t know how else to answer. He was dripping on the grey-green carpet of a bookshop. 

“What are you doing here?” Draco asked. “You’re wet. It’s raining, you know.” 

Good, Harry wasn’t the only one surprised, as evidenced by the incredibly stilted conversation they were having. 

“I was taking a walk,” Harry said.

“Who’s your friend, Drake?” The female co-worker called. 

“Chike, this is Harry. We...we went to school together.” Draco stepped aside and Chike gasped.

“Oh sweetie, you’re soaked. I think we have a towel and a shirt in the back, at least. We’ve a spare umbrella under the cash, no?” 

Draco moved from Harry’s side and started looking at some shelves behind the cash register. Harry followed, trying to be careful not to get water on the books. It was a tidy and small but packed bookshop. It looked so mundane that he almost wanted to check again that this was the Draco Malfoy he knew.

“I’ll walk you. You were heading in the wrong direction,” Draco muttered. Chike returned with a small hand towel and a black t-shirt with the name of the bookshop, a size too small, but Harry took it anyway, dried his torso a little and changed quickly. She handed him a branded tote bag for his wet shirt. 

“Cheers,” Harry said. Chike smiled. Draco scowled. 

“I’ll walk him to the Tube station and get lunch,” he said to his coworkers. They both nodded. There was something surreal about watching Draco don a raincoat and grab a black umbrella. 

“Let’s go,” Draco said. Even though Draco wasn’t that much taller, he walked fast, leaving Harry scrambling to catch up. His borrowed umbrella was heavy. Draco wove expertly through the crowd, only slowing to allow Harry to catch up once every few blocks. 

“Those people were friendly,” Harry remarked. He could see Draco clench and unclench his jaw. 

“We don’t need to make conversation. You can go back and tell all your friends you saw Draco Malfoy, and he looked pathetic,” Draco spat out. 

“I don’t think that,” Harry protested.

“They’ve closed the apparition point,” Draco said, ignoring Harry’s comment. He sounded indifferent to this, but perhaps it was that it was irrelevant to him. He pointed to a triangular symbol faintly glowing red. It had been open when he got there an hour ago. 

“Er...” Harry said. 

“You can go to Seven Sisters. There’s another outside that station. You will hardly find an empty street corner this time of day.” 

“I don’t know how,” Harry admitted. 

“You don’t know how? Weren’t you raised by—” Draco abruptly cut himself off. Harry was embarrassed, but the Dursleys never bothered allowing Harry out enough for him to learn about the Underground. 

“Can I walk there?” Harry said. Draco rolled his eyes.  
  
“No, and I don’t have time to take you. Come.” Draco took off even faster this time. He led Harry to a mid-century block of flats, through a courtyard and up to a flat on the third floor. It smelt of people’s cooking mixed with petrol. The lights flickered overheard as they walked down the hall. 

“Is this your flat?” Harry asked. 

“Keep your shoes on. I need to make a call before you apparate.” 

Draco disappeared into the other room. Harry looked around at the flat. Again, blessedly normal. There were little abstract art prints on the walls, a couple books piled on each surface and a bowl of apples on his kitchen table. Harry studied one of the bigger coffee table books, Queering the Classics. It was photos of naked men of all shapes, colours and sizes posed beside Ancient Greek statues. 

Draco emerged from the room, still on his cellphone. Without looking, Draco closed the cover on Harry’s fingers and waved his hand towards the entryway. 

“No, I understand. It was unexpected.” He paused and turned away from Harry. 

Since he wasn’t to touch anything, Harry studied Draco's back. His shoulders were definitely broader than they had been in school, arms corded with lean muscle. He hadn’t thought a bookshop required athletic commitment. His posture, even now, was ramrod straight. Harry was finally close enough to see that Draco had an undercut, short at the nape where Draco rubbed it absentmindedly as he paced around in his socks. 

“Yes. Yes. Thank you, Gabe. See you Wednesday.” 

“Who’s Gabe?” Harry asked and then sneezed. Draco scowled again. It really did nothing for his looks, Harry observed. 

“Please go home, Potter. I have to go back to work,” Draco said finally. Harry pulled out his wand. In the split second before he cast the spell, Harry could have sworn he caught a look of raw envy, so open that Harry was almost drawn back to it.


	3. iii. Metamorphosis

_August 4, 2002_

If Draco was a better person, he would have put seeing Harry Potter to the back of his mind. He definitely would not have dedicated an entire therapy session to tell Melinda their entire sordid history from Madam Malkin’s through the War. 

“Why do you think that was important to tell me?” She asked. Her cardigan today was a sunshine yellow with a tiny smiling cartoon dog pin. 

“What do you think?” Draco lobbed back at her, despite being well aware this was not necessarily how therapy worked. 

“Well, you didn’t choose to see him unlike everyone else you’ve seen from your former life,” she had said. 

Not that he was left with many friends, but they banned Draco from seeing anyone who was charged in the tribunals after the war. Gregory would never come to Muggle London, and their correspondence was stilted. It slowed to a trickle, then stopped entirely after the first year. There were few visitors besides. 

Pansy came exactly once, meeting him for tea years ago at the Victoria and Albert museum dressed exactly like a High Street mannequin in fancy Muggle clothing. She wrote to him twice a week but never visited again. Draco got the feeling that Pansy found the entire experience very disconcerting because, like him, she found it was not nearly as different as she had thought. 

“I would love to see you when I’m back,” Blaise had written from Milan a year ago. They had not been close at Hogwarts, but Blaise Zabini was familiar. 

They had met up in a nice restaurant in Covent Garden that Draco assuredly could not afford anymore. Blaise had a way of being generous without making it seem like an obligation, so they drank wine, fed each other oysters and laughed. 

It hadn’t really been a surprise that they ended up in Blaise’s hotel room. They had got some looks for kissing in the hotel lobby and lingering a bit. He could imagine how it looked, with Blaise dressed in a bespoke charcoal suit and Draco, following, wearing a bargain bin black polo and thrifted black jeans. It felt thrilling. No one knew him. 

“Have you done this before?” Blaise had asked. Draco flushed red. He knew Blaise did not mean making out with a Muggle boy during Pride night at his local. He shook his head no. 

He continued to see Blaise a couple times a year when he came to London, but it was nothing serious. 

“Harry Potter is no doubt shilling hair potion for Witch Weekly and attending ribbon cuttings. I don’t know why he had to walk into my shop to gloat on top of it all.” 

“Did he gloat?” Melinda asked carefully. 

“No. But he will,” Draco insisted. 

“You don’t know that for certain so why assume it?” Melinda challenged. “If you have changed, why can’t he have changed?” Draco scoffed. 

“So you’d rather tell me what you will do after your program is up, is that it?” Melinda pressed. Draco groaned. 

“I’ll knit cardigans. You’ll be my best customer,” Draco said. Melinda laughed aloud. 

Truth be told, he knew what he wanted to do. The Malfoys were not in a financial position for him to take after his father and idle around settling real estate and dealing in rare and borderline illegal magical artifacts. His father's reparations payment wiped out half their fortune and much of it had already been in goods. Draco could read between the lines from Narcissa Malfoy’s letters. 

_Dearest,_

_Trouble once again with contractors. The only Magical Architect who would recertify the estate with heritage designation for the council taxes told me he would only do it if we had the Manor purified. I, of course, agreed, and he recommended Augustus Washbourne of all people. Your father would have a fit, but he’s not here to complain. I have planted him more lemon balm, mint and holy basil for Samhain to offset the cost. The birds have finally returned. I am delighted as long as they don't eat my plants. I remain well. Have found a new greengrocer but I have them delivered. Thank you for the book. Tell me what you've been eating._

_Love,_

_Yr Mother_

Though his mother sold potion ingredients and small charms, it was a cottage industry meant more for pocket change than a steady salary. With his name, he’d be lucky to have any application to the Ministry make it past the bin. Draco could not afford to run a shop anywhere acceptable anymore.

He had corresponded with Headmistress McGonagall, who agreed to allow him to take his NEWTs without attending once he returned. There was only a year and a half to go. He would need some time to study. No magical materials and no wand meant there was not much he could do at the moment. At least, now he was sleeping, the tremor in his hands had subsided. 

He nurtured a hope that he could get all five NEWTs to be a Healer. It seemed a useful job. One where people might respect him. Where he could fix a little of the harm he had put into the word.

_October 12, 2003_

There wasn’t much fanfare the day the Ministry finally allowed him to go home. 

“Well, you’ll be off then. You’ll visit, won’t you?” Eustace asked as he had gathered the mugs, spare work shirts and personal items he had left in the Forwellstead's on his last day. Draco stood in front of the door. 

“Of course, Eustace,” Draco was embarrassed to feel a vague prickle in his eyelids. 

“I’ll miss your work ethic, dear boy. You reminded me how nice it is to run the shop with other people,” Eustace said. Even Eustace was getting a bit misty-eyed. 

“And my wit. It is world-class,” Draco added. Eustace just laughed. 

“I’ve got one last book for you.” Draco accepted it. And when Eustace gave him a brief hug, he accepted that too.

Back at his flat, Gabriel took back the bracelet. It had been on for so long Draco didn’t feel its presence until it wasn’t there. Draco felt a warm rush of magic settle over him and rubbed his wrist. 

“Watch your spells for a while. Start simple,” Gabe said. He handed Draco his wand and Draco found himself overwhelmed with the idea of casting anything at all. He stuck it in his pocket instead. 

Draco had packed three boxes of books, the best of his clothes, his paintings and his beloved french press, the only muggle way he’d found to get a decent cup without paying for it. Draco shouldn’t really miss anything. It was all still there for him: the British Museum, hiking at Hampstead, the Underground, his local pub, the good Tescos further away and the bad Asda around the corner and muggle lemon drops. But they would never again feel like his. 

Narcissa Malfoy greeted him with kisses on his cheeks at the front steps of the Manor. They had always been an affectionate family, but that was privately. Gabriel was standing in the pathway. He was a little uncomfortable with how she seemed to have changed. She was tan for their colouring. Her hair had gone white, there were lines in her face that were new and ones she wasn’t bothering to glamour. 

“Thank you for bringing him back, Gabe. I appreciate it,” His mother said warmly. They must know each other. Had she been checking on him? He turned to her with a question, but she merely beamed at Gabriel.

“Not a problem, Mrs. Malfoy. I’ll be back for blackberries soon.” He smiled back. 

“Draco?” Gabe said. “I’m not supposed to ask, but owl me if you ever want to go to the pub together. For a drink or something. But only if you want.” Gabe was uncharacteristically tongue-tied. 

Gabe looked hopeful. Draco waved. His crush had faded but it might be nice to have a friend. 

If his mother noticed a man had asked him out, she said nothing. Nor did she say anything about Draco’s haircut when her eyes had flicked upwards, although Draco had clearly gone to a Muggle barber and said 'give me the gayest haircut you have' and the barber obliged. 

Draco opted for the furthest wing of the house. His mother had shut up so many rooms in the interim. Now safely ensconced at home, he cast _lumos_ and nearly blinded himself. Draco had not yet got used to the wand before the Ministry took it and his control was completely off. Fuck. 

Well, it was time to get to work. 

First Draco went to the end of the Manor with the drawing room. It looked ordinary, and a thick layer of dust and grime had settled over everything. The rug was threadbare and worth nothing. The chairs were in decent condition but needed reupholstery. Nothing was of any actual value and they had moved all personal items out when their unwanted guest of honour had moved in. 

Draco sketched out the calculations directly on the hardwood with the black marker he had tucked behind his ear. Too much magic wouldn’t be a problem for this. He left the room, and the door melted into the wall. He had cut off the room from the house’s magic and made it unplottable. It would probably collapse on itself like a black hole. Good riddance. 

He repeated it with the parlour. He had to float out some furniture from the dining room first but he did that room too. By the time he was done, ten rooms had disappeared. 

The first caller he had was Gregory Goyle the next morning. There were no house-elves now since they fled during the War, so he received Greg in the solar after answering the front door. Draco felt uneasy greeting him, and that feeling didn’t abate as they spoke. They talked about the fine autumn weather, some news Draco had missed, the upcoming Greengrass-Zabini wedding and other schoolmates. Then the conversation shifted. 

“Have you seen Pansy yet?” Greg asked. 

“No,” Draco said carefully. Greg smiled. It seemed sinister somehow. The Goyles had hidden their assets better than the Malfoys; only his father went to Azkaban for ten years. Greg had paid some token amount of reparation money and never been on probation. He was uncomfortably aware that they had switched social positions. 

“Really? How interesting.” Greg told him more about Quidditch before abruptly again, focusing on Draco.

“It must have been hard,” Greg remarked. “Living around them.”

“I didn’t have a choice,” Draco said. 

Not having access to any magic or unfiltered news had bothered him the most, actually. Muggles seemed, on the whole, alright. They were no more inclined to evil or ignorance or weakness than any wizard. It didn’t seem like the sort of conversation he could have with Greg. Greg smirked again, and Draco realized he really did not like that expression. 

“A few of us in the Sacred Twenty-Eight have formed a small social club. Wine Wednesdays, some trading, if you’re interested,” Greg said. 

“Does Panse go to them?” Draco asked. Greg laughed harshly. 

“You were always a riot, D,” Greg said. He didn’t extend the invitation again. 

Pansy came by a few days later with Theodore Nott. Draco was a little unsettled. He didn’t know Theo well, but from her letters nowadays Pansy came as a package deal. Draco had been that way with her once, but it had been five years. 

Theo examined the paintings on the wall in Draco’s bedroom while he and Pansy sat on his settee. Draco would have offended Pansy if he asked her to sit in one of the public rooms, and he wanted something that felt normal. 

“Well? Do you like my new nose?” Pansy asked. She turned her face to the side so he could see the likely expensive work of a permanent cosmetic glamour.

“There was nothing wrong with your old nose, Pansy,” Theo said. He sounded like this had been the subject of many conversations Draco did not want to join. 

“Beautiful. You look lovely, as always,” Draco said. He was still getting over the fact everyone looked older, although it made sense. They were barely out of their teens when he last saw most of them, and now everyone was in their mid-twenties. 

“Darling, I’m glad they didn’t starve you there, but I don’t know how I feel about all of this,” Pansy said, pinching Draco’s bicep with powder pink manicured nails. 

“Ow! Keep your claws to yourself, witch,” Draco said. Draco flicked a finger with a small non-verbal spell and Pansy nearly careened off the furniture. His control was shot. 

“You bastard!” Pansy lunged for him and Draco waited until the last minute to dodge and then slung her over his shoulder. 

“Put me down or I’ll hex your left testicle off.” Draco laughed and then set her down. 

Some things never changed. Pansy huffed while she straightened her grey silk robes and checked for snags. Draco didn’t even see her cast the stinging hex that hit his ankle. Pansy snickered as he grabbed it. They were too old to break furniture roughhousing again, so he called a reluctant truce. 

“Is Millicent in Germany?” Draco asked. 

“Yes. Last I heard she was doing a Potions mastery,” Pansy said. “Apparently not a lesbian after all.” 

Draco flushed. 

“And would that be a problem if she was?” Draco asked. He was very afraid of her answer. They were purebloods, after all and prevailing attitudes were somewhere between "keep it to yourself" and "as long as I don't have to see it and you produce heirs."

“No. Why would it be? Theo’s queer and you are clearly gay,” Pansy said. 

“Pansexual is fine for me, too,” Theo said, his back still turned to them both. 

Well there was a surprise. Draco wanted to make eye contact with Theo to assess what the fuck was going on but he was stubbornly examining his books and paintings. 

“What do you mean clearly?” Draco sputtered. 

Pansy raised one perfect eyebrow at Draco and mouthed ‘Durmstrang fourth year’. It had been the first time he drank grain alcohol and he had been kissed by some boy named Ivan, immediately thrown up over the side of Durmstrang’s boat and cried inconsolably for an hour in the field while Pansy rubbed his back. Pansy had been sworn to secrecy. 

“You’re a horrid woman,” Draco said without much heat.

“Is this Muggle?” Theo finally asked about one painting. Draco nodded. “It’s very good. I like your art.” 

“Theo likes art,” Pansy added, not at all helpfully.

“Oh, do you work in art?” Draco asked. One of Nott’s stepfathers had. 

“No, he works at the Department of Mysteries, messing around with the fabric of time,” Pansy chimed in. Theo shrugged. So it was possible to find Ministry work with their history. 

“Pretty much yeah,” Theo said. 

Theo seemed content to poke around the room, reading some books Draco had brought home with him and picking up a toy snitch on Draco’s desk. Theo seemed to let Pansy do all the talking. And talk she did. Pansy told him stock prices, which shop vendors would allow former Death Eaters in and which Ministry officials would accept bribes. 

Draco told them both about his plans for his NEWTs and to become a Healer. Neither seemed very surprised. He planned to sit for seven exams since he needed five to give himself a safety net. 

They spent the better part of a day together before he thought to mention the odd visit from Greg. Pansy, who had been her usual fun self, turned very serious. Theo froze in front of the gates to Malfoy Manor. 

“Mother has been burning all our invites anyway,” Draco joked. 

“Draco. There will be more invitations to that kind of thing. Don’t go to any of them. Promise me,” Pansy looked worried.

“Okay, I promise,” Draco laughed because Pansy had always had a dramatic streak. “What’s this about?” 

“Nothing about this is funny, Draco. Promise me,” Pansy insisted. Draco met Theo’s cool gaze and then Pansy’s grave expression more carefully. 

“I promise,” Draco said more firmly. Pansy kissed him on the cheek and apparated, mid-stride. 


	4. iv. Fire In The Blood

_September 1, 2002_

Harry did not call a mind healer out of any sense of professional preservation, though he should have.

He called because he’d looked at Draco Malfoy in a Muggle bookshop and realized for the first time that there were questions about himself that he could not answer. What were the odds of their meeting? What did it mean? Why did it feel like Harry had stayed the same and Draco changed? Why did everyone seem to change but Harry? 

Harry had a far more charmed life in comparison, but did Harry admire Draco in some small way because he wanted to be him? Or was it because Draco was devastatingly good-looking and he was a tiny bit attracted to him? 

Harry was not sure what to do with either thought. That alone represented a revelation, and this was a hell of a time for an existential crisis. 

Healer Jupiter Blishwick was more interested in questions such as, “When was the last time you slept eight hours Harry?” and “What do you know about depression?” and “How do you feel about eating sandwiches from the street cart in Diagon for dinner most nights?” and “How would you feel about the word bisexual?”

The first Sunday lunch that weekend with Hermione and Ron, he told them in halting words about what had happened. True to Kingsley’s word, most people thought he was on assignment. 

Ron had never joined after finishing Auror training. It would be another six years before his trainee license would expire. But once Ron had started working at Weasleys’ Wizarding Wheezes and expanded their franchises, Harry got the feeling Ron would probably never return. Ron seemed to enjoy retail real estate, stock logistics and wizarding freight shipping more than he had ever liked catching Dark wizards on the run. 

“That’s fucking bullshit,” Ron said. Harry shrugged. 

Truth was, it wasn’t entirely without basis. With time to examine his life, Harry was starting to re-evaluate. 

There had been things he had been doing for no reason at all, like continuing a relationship with Ginny past its natural end, staying up too late to keep his Auror schedule even though he wasn’t going in and drinking too much. There were things he had avoided doing like cooking in his own kitchen, doing anything about the remaining renovations at Grimmauld or even figuring what he wanted out of his life. 

Harry didn’t think this meant he should be on leave, but he could admit it was a sign of _something_. 

Harry sat in the middle of their couch between the two of them. He found it comforting, as if they were back at school and nothing had ever changed. 

“It’s nothing. I need a break,” Harry said. 

“Oh, Harry,” Hermione said. She didn’t argue with him. 

She swept Harry into a hug. Ron swung an arm around the both of them. Harry didn’t realize his face was wet with tears until he scrubbed at it with the back of his hand. They sat like this for a while. 

Harry started running every other day around Islington. At least he couldn’t get lost there since it was local, and it burned more energy than ambling aimlessly. He fought the temptation to go back to Edmonton Green. Running gave him something to measure. Harry was slow but he had to keep up his conditioning somehow. 

He needed something to do besides returning to Healer Blishwick twice a week. 

Harry had one real problem as far as he was concerned. But every week he had to excavate truth after truth that he had stopped thinking about. It felt strange to face someone who was not much older than him and tell him trivial things about his upbringing. After all, the most important thing that would ever happen to him had happened already. Everyone knew about it. 

Harry also did not like Healer Blishwick’s office. For one thing, Harry expected something that looked more like an office. Instead, he was stuck in a replica of a beach house. The window showed a view of the Pacific Ocean. Every few minutes at random, wind chimes played. Even their chairs were a teak frame with a woven white hammock-style seat. The effect must be meant to be relaxing but Harry felt deeply irritated as if someone was trying to trick him. 

“Sorry, is there any way to change the setting?” Harry finally asked halfway through his third session. Healer Blishwick smiled. 

“Of course.” Healer Blishwick waved his wand, and they were in an office building once again.

“You want to be cleared to go back, Harry. That’s understandable. But you told me you were very disappointed and unhappy there. So why?”

“At least then I was useful. I know how to do the work. I did the training. One more year and I would have at least been able to pick some of my assignments. Now I’ll have no standing for another year if I return,” Harry said, frustrated. 

“I want to talk about this feeling of being useful. Don’t you think there are other things that you can value about yourself?” Healer Blishwick said. Harry tried not to groan audibly. Well, at least they were doing this somewhere that made sense. 

Slowly, over the next few months, he felt like all the missing parts of him were returning. 

He found a crowbar in Sirius' bedroom one evening that hadn’t been there last he looked. He circled around the house, looking at all the dark wood panelling downstairs. He pried one board off. Underneath there was crumbly grey painted plaster. As Harry used his weight to break it off entirely, the board splintered and the house seemed to shiver. After the first dozen boards, Harry got the hang of it. 

When he was finally done hours later, there was a pile of boards and plaster all over the floor, but the whole area felt lighter somehow. He could buy paint. He could change it. Things could change for the better. 

Harry felt guilty about his irregular visits, but he pushed through his discomfort to ask Andromeda if he could come for lunch. 

“Harry, broom ride?” Teddy asked for the fiftieth time this visit. Teddy’s hands were sticky with juice and one hand was patting Harry’s face in what Harry was sure was meant to be an affectionate gesture. Disgusting but cute. 

“No, Teddy. I don’t have my broom with me,” Harry said. Teddy smiled at him with the openness of a five-year-old. If Harry was not a trained Auror, maybe Teddy would have been able to snatch the wand he had left on Andromeda’s living room table. A spray of harmless green sparks went off as soon as Teddy’s hand brushed it. 

“That’s not yours, Teddy,” Harry said. Teddy giggled and curled up on the sofa. 

“Hope you don’t mind but I needed the sleep,” Andromeda said, coming downstairs from her nap. “Teddy’s missed you.”

A soft snore came from the couch. Teddy had fallen asleep himself. At this age, three weeks seemed like a long time. 

“Not at all. I should come by more often,” Harry said. 

“You’ve been busy. But you’re welcome any time,” Andromeda said. She knew he was on leave, but she made her excuses for him.

Harry watched little Teddy curled up, his hair a splash of bright blue.

“It’s better for me when I make steady plans. What about Tuesdays? I can come for lunch or dinner depending on my schedule,” Harry offered. Andromeda brightened.

“I would love that,” she said. 

_May 12, 2003_

When Kingsley invited Harry to dinner with his wife Patience about nine months into his leave by Owl, Harry figured it would be good to show he was doing better. 

Patience Shacklebolt was a whirlwind of a woman. As a muggleborn, Kingsley had sent her off in an illegal international portkey during the war. Harry had spent little time around Patience aside from the occasional Department function, but he liked her.

Her deep brown skin gleamed and her hair was always in some elaborate confection of long twists. She was as tall as Kingsley, as loud as Kingsley, and needled her husband relentlessly while he cooked.

“Don’t put too much pepper, dear. The boy doesn’t have an iron cauldron for a stomach like you do,” Patience said. She elbowed Harry conspiratorially, grinning widely. Harry sat on their couch, holding his mug of tea. Her smile and laugh was contagious. 

“If you want to cook instead, don’t let me stop you,” Kingsley called back from the kitchen. 

“I am the only Potions master certified on this continent to brew twelve Ministry restricted potions. I have fifty exclusive worldwide patents. Tell me, Harry, should I cook?” She said. 

“No, ma’am,” Harry said. 

Patience hooted with laughter. Harry was afraid that they were actually annoying Kingsley, but he glanced over and Kingsley was smiling to himself.

Their townhouse was in a small enclave of wizarding homes in Brixton. The exterior was plain and unassuming, but the inside was eclectic. There were little handmade charms in every window and doorway. It was a cultural thing, he thought, but didn’t want to ask. All their furniture was the same beautiful dark cherry wood which seemed more adult than the museum of mismatched dated antiques he lived in. They even had framed Muggle postcards from travelling. 

Harry wanted a home like this. He finally realized why Ginny had asked him to go to shops with her on their weekends off to pick new dishes when they already had dishes. 

There was even a record player where Patience played some jazz music over dinner. 

“If I ever figure out how to shield electronics from magic in here....” Patience trailed off. 

“Arthur will figure it out one day and you’ll have your speakers,” Kingsley said. 

"We’ve broken so many! Spells aren't the same," Patience said. Kingsley agreed.

They looked at each other so lovingly, Harry noticed. He set aside that pang of envy. 

“I’m afraid I didn’t bring you here just for dinner, Harry,” Kingsley said. 

Patience was monitoring the washing up, prodding wayward dishes with her wand at the sink, and they sat at the dining table. 

“If you’re ready to return to service, I have a special assignment for you.”

There was a time that Harry would have leapt for any chance to return, no matter the circumstances. But he knew now to be careful. Harry needed Auror work grounded in purpose and context or he’d find himself lost again. He needed to be able to step away sometimes and breathe. 

“We’ve been noticing an uptick in activity for pureblood terrorist groups,” Kingsley said. Harry lifted an eyebrow. It came in waves, usually around some piece of legislation, but last he knew, nothing major had happened. He was skimming the Prophet if not reading very closely.

“Is there someone leading them?” Harry asked. 

“Nothing like that. There’s a very decentralized structure. Small cells carrying out particular operations. But I’m worried about the intelligence we’ve been receiving. Someone is moving a lot of Galleons to fund this. We thought the recent arrests with Dark objects were one-off incidents, but if they are connected, it’s about to get much worse,” Kingsley said. 

Harry absorbed that information. As trainees, his cohort had spent a lot of time arresting fleeing Death Eaters across the continent with the European Wizarding Commission. If Kingsley was worried with as much information as he must have access to...

“So would I report to Tabachnick if I returned to work on this?” Harry said, naming his old boss. 

Harry wasn’t looking forward to it, as Ursula Tabachnick seemed to resent him for some perceived slight he’d never figured out. She had kept trying to shunt Harry from general duty to International Security Cooperation or Public Affairs. 

Both departments were public facing and the worst possible choice for someone like him as he would rather die (again) than talk to the media or politicians. 

“No. You’d report directly to me. It’ll be a small team.” Kingsley was asking. He wasn’t ordering. And that was what worried Harry most. 

“I’ll be there Monday,” Harry promised. 


	5. v. The Sound and the Fury

_June 1, 2004_

Going back to Hogwarts had stirred up a few feelings that he should probably talk to Melinda about next month. He had made three cups of french press coffee and drank it at 6 am. Now closer to mid-morning, he wished his mother had made him eat more than half a scone with jam and an orange as his stomach roiled. 

Draco had been offered a floo directly into the Headmaster’s quarters but that seemed like too much to deal with all things considering. Instead, he apparated into Hogsmeade and walked across the fields and towards the castle. 

There were groups of students sitting in their uniforms sprawled across the lawn chasing the first bit of consistent sunshine. They looked so young to him that he almost couldn’t believe he had been that small once. None of them seemed to take any interest in him, dismissing him almost immediately as an adult and therefore unworthy of attention. 

It felt like if Draco turned around at exactly the right moment, he could spot himself and Pansy wearing the minimum amount of uniform they could get away with and complaining about homework. Draco shook his head. 

He was glad that they hadn’t made him wear his uniform again, just black robes.

And when he arrived at the Great Hall, he found it smaller than he remembered. 

“Welcome back, Mr. Malfoy. I trust you’ve studied hard,” Headmistress McGonagall said. Draco scanned her face for some hint of reproach but she seemed genuinely pleased to see him. 

“Yes, Headmistress. And I trust you’ve been well?” Draco asked.

“Hogwarts doesn’t change much, but it’s good to be here,” McGonagall said. She clapped her hands. “Shall we?”

In the end he had taken NEWTs for Transfiguration, Potions, Herbology, Charms, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Arithmancy and Ancient Runes. After a week straight of exams he slept for fourteen hours. 

The post arrived from the Ministry less than a week later. Draco had got all seven NEWTs. Seven. As many as Hermione Granger. True, he had 6 Outstandings and one Exceeds Expectations because he had practiced the wrong sort of Arithmancy problems. But it was more than good enough to be a Healer. 

_July 3, 2004_

The last step of the process was an entrance interview at the Magical Training and Recruitment office in the Ministry. It had gone okay until the end, though Draco was too nervous to really know whether any of the five panelists had liked any of his answers; they seemed trapped in various degrees of boredom.

“We would like one more reference letter given your _history_ ,” a witch on the panel said. “Otherwise, I’m afraid we can’t offer you an acceptance.” 

Draco nodded as if everything she said was perfectly reasonable. He had given up on this point trying to calculate whether people were reacting to his history specifically, the general idea of him or something else. It would have driven him up a wall otherwise. The laws were clear enough. Had he not chosen a diversion program he wouldn’t even be eligible to apply. He had once employed that superior tone himself.

“And Mr. Malfoy? If I were you, I would consider removing any _visible_ reminders of my past as well,” Another wizard on the panel said. Draco fought the urge to grab his left forearm reflexively. It was covered. They couldn’t have seen it. The only people who were even sure he had the Mark were dead or in Azkaban. He bowed politely and left. He couldn’t afford to—

“Malfoy. What are you doing at the Ministry?” Harry asked him as Draco left the room.

Draco was desperate to get some air, and there was Harry Potter again. Harry was wearing the finely tailored smoke grey robes of the Ministry Aurors. Was Harry to witness every fucking failure in Draco’s life from start to finish?

“Nothing that concerns you, Potter,” Draco told him. 

He looked down at his own robes. Slightly too short in the sleeve, and his borrowed overcoat that was for Lucius’ slimmer build. It had been stubbornly resistant to alteration charms but he should have bought a brand new one. Pansy would have murdered him if she saw this outfit. 

Draco felt like a naïve child. Part of him had believed that it would be as simple as going away for a little bit and everything would be fine when he returned. He was bitterly aware of the irony of being upset that someone had been unfair to him because of who he was. 

“If you’re going for the exit, you are headed in the wrong direction,” Harry said, trailing him by a few feet. 

Draco looked up. So he was. He was in a maze of hallways indistinguishable from the ones he had left and yet nowhere closer to the atrium.

“This way,” Harry said. Draco begrudgingly followed. He had not realized that Harry’s hair curled along the nape of his neck when long enough. He tore his eyes away. 

“Were you in the Healer interviews?” Harry asked, turning back. On top of it all, Harry seemed so uncomplicatedly kind. It made Draco want to hide. What was his fucking angle? 

“Yes,” Draco answered. He didn’t want to say much, but he didn’t want Harry to strand him in this maze, especially when he felt like the walls were closing in. 

“That would be a cool job for you, I’d think,” Harry turned around once again and he was smiling. 

Even Harry's glasses were different, a more rectangular shape with tortoiseshell frames. It suited him. What right did Harry have to go around looking like that in public while Draco was trying to have a breakdown? 

“They’ve let me know that may not be possible with my record,” Draco said flatly after a long moment. 

“Why not?” Harry asked. They were closer to the exit now. Draco considered keeping silent, but the cocktail of anxiety and residual humiliation loosened his tongue. 

“I need one more character reference. Headmistress McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey both have already. The rest refused. I have exactly two friends and I’m not allowed to use criminals or war collaborators. That’s _why not_.” 

Harry checked his watch. 

“I have an idea. Can we speak for five minutes elsewhere?” Draco paused, then nodded his assent. Anything to be outdoors and breathe. He had dug his fingernails in his palms to steady himself. 

They both walked through Diagon Alley, getting pointed stares from passing wizards and witches. Some offered smiles to Harry then their gazes slid to Draco and they frowned. Lavender Brown saw him from outside the Leaky and spat at his feet. It landed nowhere near him, but the sentiment was clear. No wonder his mother still refused to go out in public. Harry didn't react but he didn't greet Lavender either. Draco could feel her eyes on them. 

Draco sat down next to Harry on the sidewalk patio of a coffee shop, though it was too warm out. Somehow what Harry said next caught him unawares. 

“I can write the letter for you. And they should accept you if I write it. It’s at least something,” Harry said. If Draco let his pride rule him, he would have strode back into Diagon Alley. But this time, practicality stayed his hand. His heart picked up tempo a little. A letter from Harry Potter would mean something to the Board. 

“Why would you do this for me?” Draco demanded. 

“If McGonagall would write you a letter then you’d be an excellent Healer,” Harry said. Draco rolled his eyes. What a softhearted bastard. For all he knew, Draco would fail. But he wasn't in a position to refuse even a misplaced offer of assistance 

“What do you want then?” Draco began thinking of what hadn’t been sold, decommissioned or Vanished. “There are a few artefacts in the family library that are worth something. I have jewellery.”

He had hoped to sell some pieces to see if someone could do something about the Mark. It had faded and left a pink outline in scar tissue of what had once been there. He could glamour it, but he would need something expensive and more permanent if it was never to be visible again. 

“I don’t have any names that would help you, ” Draco continued. Harry was rather impassive. It was impossible to know what he was thinking. Harry kept those green eyes trained on him like he wanted something but hadn’t decided what.

Draco swallowed hard. If pressed, he knew he’d be obligated to name the few people that had approached him in his first days back. But Harry waved a hand dismissively. 

“Merlin, there are plenty of informants and I have heirlooms of my own. I don’t want you to give me something,” Harry said. Harry had relaxed into his chair as if they were just chatting shit and having a friendly drink. 

“You must want _something_ in exchange,” Draco insisted. Harry appeared to think for a moment. 

“Fine then. Sometimes, for special cases, we need outside consultants and researchers. We pay, but not a lot. It would be helpful,” Harry said.

“How would that differ from being an informant?” Draco asked. Harry fixed him with a sharp look. Draco had forgotten for a moment that Harry was a trained and highly dangerous professional. Draco guessed being questioned by Harry would be seriously unpleasant.

“To be clear, I’m not asking you about whichever of the half dozen groups that keeps trying to recruit you. We have information on them all, and I know you’re not involved, so I don’t need it.” 

Draco tried not to shiver at the casualness with which Harry treated the information. Whatever some of these groups had mixed themselves up in was more than a social club if Aurors were surveilling them. 

"So what then?" Draco asked. 

“I'll be asking you questions more like how much magic could you cram in a calumet crescent ward before it explodes,” Harry said. 

Draco frowned, running some quick calculations in his head. 

“There aren’t any balancing runes, why the fuck would someone do that? Feed it a thimbleful of magic and you’re liable to blow your own face off.”

“Or half a street in Port Talbot. The Department took ten weeks to tell me they weren’t certain if it was possible,” Harry said. 

Draco rubbed the bridge of his nose with annoyance. Nothing had changed in five years on the Ministry incompetence front. He could see how he could be useful. And although he wanted to act like it meant nothing to him, the idea of being barred from being a Healer cut him deeply. If Draco couldn’t manage it with seven NEWTs and a letter from Harry Potter himself, then at least he would know it would never be possible. 

They shook on it. 

A week later, a bright gold scroll titled _Your Acceptance to St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries’ Healer Program_ arrived at the Manor. 

His mother made coq au vin for dinner that night, bought him three sets of new trainee robes and gave him a key to a Gringotts vault. He looked at his mother quizzically. 

“Severus said I wasn’t to tell you that he left you money unless you did something useful with yourself,” she told him. Draco smiled a little. Sounded like something he’d do.

Pansy threw him a little party at Theo’s flat (where she practically lived) with champagne and a lemon vanilla tiered cake. Pansy told him Theo had got the flat because he was no longer welcome in Nott residence when his new stepfather was around. 

“Did you make the cake yourself?” Draco asked. Some of the piping was a bit crooked and it didn’t seem like house-elf work. 

“Have you ever known me to bake?” Pansy answered archly. Theo and Draco looked at each other knowingly and drank from their flutes rather than challenge that suspiciously non-specific denial. 

She insisted on dancing to the wireless pop station, so she led him in a waltz, then a salsa.

“I learned this one in New Zealand,” Pansy declared then led Draco in a complicated twirling dance. Draco finally got the hang of it about a half hour later. 

“Who taught you?” Draco asked breathlessly. 

“I lied. It’s not a real dance,” Pansy said. She laughed directly in his astounded face. 

Theo sat and watched, but by now, Draco was used to his silences. 

“It’s only fair if you teach Theo too,” Draco insisted. 

“It’s not even real. It looks ridiculous,” Theo said, but he allowed Pansy to lead him, too. 

Theo got it faster than Draco had. Theo struggled not to smile as Pansy taught him. Draco watched them look at each other and stashed that knowledge away for later. If his friends were happy, he would be as well.


	6. vi. Persuasion

_ May 15, 2003  _

Harry got a brief note on Monday at 6 am the Special Task Force would be working out of the new wing of the Ministry. It felt good to wear his Ministry robes again. He packed his field coat in a satchel, even though he wasn’t likely to go anywhere. 

“Interesting,” Zacharias Smith scanned him from head to toe as Harry entered the brand new office. 

“Hello to you too, Smith,” Harry said. 

There was no love lost between them. Zacharias had been a dick as a child and if reports around the Ministry were correct, he’d continued being a dick into adulthood. He reported his own teammates for uniform violations and was largely unpopular even before he went to fumble media responses in the Public Affairs division. Why would Kingsley pick him?

“Is that Potter?” Penelope Clearwater popped out of one of the rooms. 

Harry was delighted to see her. Penny had been a peer mentor to his year in Auror training. She did more paperwork than fieldwork now, but she’d been a top agent during the raids. She worked in Special Crimes, and Harry had never watched someone bring so much empathy to their work. 

“Clearwater,” he greeted warmly.

“Potter,” She returned, grinning. 

“Is Kingsley here yet?” Since Harry was closest, he turned to face a young Black witch. He was certain she was an Unspeakable though he only knew her by sight. 

“Athena Meadowes,” She answered. “So you’re Harry Potter?”

Harry nodded although it seemed rhetorical with the scar on his forehead. The last name Meadowes seemed familiar, but he must have read it somewhere because he was sure he hadn’t met her. 

“You’re shorter than I’d thought,” Athena said. Zacharias guffawed. Harry was indifferent. People tried to deflect the discomfort with him by trying to diminish him in some way. It was much better than the fawning. 

Kingsley entered shortly after. 

“Most of the groups we will be investigating collectively refer to themselves as the Old Ways. This is a polite euphemism for pureblood supremacy affiliated terrorism. Many of the members are former Death Eaters or war collaborators, but not all. Other MLE departments are looking at aspects of their operations. The Special Task Force and the Minister are the only ones who will have the full picture. We will be focusing on the groups carrying out attacks and using Dark magic and objects.”

“What attacks?” Athena asked. Her mouth was drawn tight. Kingsley sighed. 

“You’ll see in your packages. None are public right now, but a few muggleborns have been attacked around access points to the Wizarding world at night or in the early hours of the morning.”

“Why not?” Zacharias asked. “Won’t that undermine public trust when it does come out this has been happening?” An actual smart question out of him. 

“The Minister for Magic has been putting significant pressure on the media not to report full details.” It was clear Kingsley didn’t advise it, but there was nothing to say to the Minister himself. 

The first task was sorting through the reports from other departments. Harry sat down and began to read. 

_ July 3, 2004 _

Harry had convinced himself whatever good looks Draco possessed were solely the product of money, but he recognized ill-fitting secondhand clothes when he saw them. And still Draco looked handsome to him. Draco made it look like a choice. 

Harry’s offer, unlike Draco’s fashion choices, was a bad, impulsive idea. The letter itself was fine. He could do that as a private citizen. The offer to be a consultant was not. He had not asked Kingsley, much less filled in the heavily vetted applications to get a new expert. Harry had given himself permission to check in on Draco for no good goddamn reason. He had ulterior motives, even if he wasn't sure what they were. 

“You want to have Draco Malfoy, the former Death Eater, consult with the Special Task Force?” Kingsley said evenly.

“He’ll be in Healer Training, which gives us an avenue to have someone research some of the confidential questions about health effects. He’s not under suspicion but he knows many of the key people. He was second only to Hermione. I looked it up. He got seven NEWTs. He has a familiarity with Dark objects and their uses,” Harry explained.

“You want me to pay your childhood nemesis—who you once tried to murder in a school bathroom—so he can help the Ministry catch some of his former colleagues?” 

Harry winced. He knew it was in his file. Everything was in his file because of who he was. 

“Yes,” Harry said. Kingsley did not even blink at him. 

“Even Athena doesn’t know everything. We could all call on him,” Harry added. 

Kingsley eyed Harry suspiciously. 

“No we won’t all call on him. It’s your idea, he’s your asset. You’ll be his liaison.” 

Kingsley Shacklebolt summoned the consultant form from the shelf behind him and Harry distinctly heard him mutter the words ‘fucking bizarre’. 

_ October 21, 2004 _

Hermione hadn’t been drinking lately at Saturday dinner, but today she held a rather large glass of wine. 

“How’s Oliver?” Ron asked. Harry didn’t know how to answer that because he didn’t exactly talk to Oliver. Quidditch season permitting, they had a lot of fun, inventive sex and then went to their respective beds. He wasn’t even sure when Oliver’s birthday was. 

“He’s fine. Having a great season so far,” Harry said. He felt a little awkward discussing his dating life with Ron and Hermione since coming out, but they were supportive and hinted less at settling down than Molly Weasley did. 

“And how’s work? Who’s your team tapping for expertise now?” Hermione asked. She was always more interested in talking about work than Ron, who mostly wanted to not think about work when he wasn’t paid to. 

“I thought I told you. It’s Malfoy,” Harry said. That was a lie. He didn’t particularly want to get into the impulsive decision-making behind that one and had avoided mentioning him. 

“Why?” Hermione asked. Harry, once again, weighed the truth versus a diplomatic answer.

At first, Harry brought him evidence as a vetting exercise, but Draco never reacted differently even if he suspected he was being tested or Harry didn’t fully trust him. There was no small detail overlooked, no lack of context he didn’t probe, and a fair few times he’d managed to guess why Harry would ask certain questions. 

Draco was uptight, fussy, and infuriating. 

Draco was also brilliant. More brilliant than Harry had thought. He put together pieces of evidence in a way that the rest of the team didn’t or couldn’t. Harry told Draco he could be an Auror and Draco had nearly pissed himself laughing. But it was true. 

“He knows a lot.” Was what Harry landed on. Hermione wasn’t satisfied. 

“I wonder what he could be consulting on is all,” Hermione continued, deceptively casual.

“Recently we’ve been speaking about Cruciatus victims because of the Inverness kidnappings,” Harry said. 

He took a sip of his own wine. Hermione had the security clearance for general details, as did Ron, even though it seemed he was unlikely to come back to the Ministry. Some details were already in the Prophet. They had leaked somehow. Harry certainly wasn’t going to be the one to accuse his boss of undermining Minister Dale Steel. 

“The ones with the young muggleborn women?” Hermione confirmed. “Was that a targeted attack?” Harry nodded reluctantly.

Harry glanced up and all the colour had drained from Hermione’s face. She looked an awful shade of ashy pale bronze. She got up and turned on her heel and abruptly left the room. 

He knew Hermione hated these cases, which is why she’d refused to join the Prosecutor Service after her legal training. Harry knew her history with Draco, and he hadn’t expected Hermione to be pleased, but the way she had reacted was uncharacteristic. She saw much worse treatment in her werewolf discrimination cases. 

Hermione had been the advocate for reconciliation programs and had lobbied the truth finding committee to publish all depositions in a book. Besides her legal work in the department of Magical Beings Rights, she sat on the Board for the War Museum, the Habitat Restoration Project and the new Healer Memory Centre. 

Hermione had been the first of them to insist that once someone had served their time, isolation and poor treatment for low-level Death Eaters would lead to re-offending. She had been the first of the three of them to go to a mind healer. She was the first of them to talk about the War openly in the media. But there was something he wasn’t thinking through.

Ron came back from the bedroom, twisting his hands nervously. 

“I would have asked her for advice but she’s so busy. Is she offended that I didn’t ask her? Was it the case? Should I not have mentioned Draco?” Harry asked. Ron looked exhausted. Harry hadn’t even noticed. 

“It’s not him,” Ron shot him a funny look but continued.

“It’s the case. I told you we were trying now?” Ron said. “Yesterday we went for an appointment at St Mungo’s because she was concerned. And they told her that because of...what happened, it might be difficult for her to have any children. That it happens to lots of people who endured extended use of the Cruciatus curse.”

The information hit Harry like a freight train. Harry felt awful. He had been talking about something that had happened to her and she still lived with. He forgot. He was ashamed he had forgotten. 

“Hermione says she doesn’t blame you but she’s not been doing well recently. With what you’re working on, maybe we shouldn’t talk about it.” Ron said. 

Hermione must feel awful as well, knowing that someone was doing this to other muggleborn witches and wizards after the war. A sickened feeling settled over him. He had to detach himself from his work to do it well, but it struck him then that this had continued. After all they had done. 

Harry walked up to their bedroom. 

“I’m so sorry,” Harry said. Hermione was face down on her pillow, her dark curls fanned out on the bed. She sniffed once and hard. She sat up and wiped her eyes. 

“Ah, it’s too much wine,” She waved a hand and tried to laugh it off. She swiped away some mascara that had bled underneath her eyes. Harry sat, took a corner of the bedspread and wiped away the splotches she had missed. 

“I forget that most of what I work on is not really conversation for polite company,” Harry said. Ron also sat on the bedspread, resting his head on Hermione’s legs. She calmed simply by Ron’s presence. 

“Neither is mine. I had asked. And you didn’t know about the recent stuff,” Hermione insisted. “Normally it would be—well, I wouldn’t want to consult on that, in any case.”

“Still,” Harry said. “I’m sorry.”

“We should play board games next week,” Ron suggested. 

So they did that instead. 

_ January 23, 2005 _

As the months wore on, Harry wouldn’t say that they got more comfortable with each other, but more that Draco seemed to realize Harry legitimately wasn’t going to try something untoward. The investigations continued, the cases continued and they got nowhere closer to getting the names and arrests for attacks.

Harry was frustrated, but Draco wasn’t to blame. 

“If you meet me at my home, it would be easier for us to continue to meet securely without drawing attention. But I can’t promise you someone won’t notice,” Harry warned during their last meeting in a field somewhere in Surrey. 

Draco laughed. 

“Yes, I’ve seen the Prophet. Floo?” Draco said.

The remark was absent of the sneering he thought would accompany it. It seemed they sold papers based solely on news about him. For a while, Weasley-style Christmas sweaters had even come into fashion because he wore one to a holiday party at Luna’s. Molly had received hundreds of requests from around Europe for an authentic one. There was no real use being embarrassed by the incessant media coverage according to Healer Blishwick, because they rarely knew anything. But he was still self-conscious in front of Draco. 

“I’ll put in the request to connect ours,” Harry said. 

Less than a week later, Draco arrived in his fireplace a few minutes after they had agreed at 3 in the afternoon. Draco’s hair was wet, and absent of its normal styling as if he’d just emerged from the shower. Harry found himself missing the length he’d seen when Draco had been living as a muggle.

Draco glanced around. 

“It’s different from all the photos,” Draco said simply. Harry guessed Narcissa probably would have been here as a child. 

Harry looked around with new eyes. He hadn’t quite done everything he needed to, but he had sanded and painted the walls a warm grey and refinished most of the flooring from oak to a warm maple. Eventually he would get more windows placed on the south side of the house but for now, he had placed a magic skylight in the entryway for more light. 

“I should very much hope so,” Harry said. They walked into the dining room where Harry had set up the special Pensieve. Draco was still looking around at his place. 

Today they could use a new Pensieve where they would both walk in his memory of the crime scene. 

“For us to enter the memory together, you’ll have to hold my hand.” Harry shouldn’t be nervous. There was an interesting expression playing across Draco’s face, but Draco held out his hand. 

“Well? I haven’t got all day,” Draco said. 

Harry clasped his left hand in his right. A tingle passed through him and they both jumped. 

It was an eerie scene as they stood in the middle of the burned out remains of a Victorian-style house and Harry’s ghost wandered around the ruins. 

“Someone set fire to this witch’s home but she’d left last minute to help her parents with something. We believe it was targeted. It’s definitely magical because it’s destroyed all the ambient magic for a mile round. But we’re not sure where the fire originated.” Harry explained.

Draco let go of his hand to crouch and look at some of the remains.

“Are there any other wizarding homes around?” Draco asked. 

“No. She’s the only one,” Harry answered. They moved deeper into the shell of the home. Harry knew he couldn’t actually feel it, but it surprised him how much detail he could see this time. 

“Is she also a muggleborn?” Draco asked. He knelt by a doorway and used his hand to sift through some of the fine ash. The word sounded strange in Draco’s mouth to Harry. 

“Isn’t that enough for this crowd?” Harry said. 

Harry very carefully watched Draco’s face. People changed, but people didn’t change that much, did they? Draco’s face was tight and expressionless. Watching Draco look at the crime scene slowly made him feel unmoored somehow. Harry couldn’t help but push the tiny bit further though it was irrelevant to the investigation. 

“Why do you think they burned down her house rather than something else?” Harry said. 

“How should I know, Potter? Aren’t you the Auror?” Draco bit back. 

Draco was kneeling by the fireplace.

“It seems pointless,” Harry admitted. 

"It is. There's no reason to do any of this except to be cruel and to scare people," Draco said. A long moment passed. 

"The origin of the fire is here. See that starter? They use it in eastern European wizarding hearths in the winter. It’s been cursed." 

Harry pulled them out. They were holding hands outside the Pensieve and Draco dropped his hand with a quickness that belied his annoyance. 

“Is that all?” Draco asked. 

“Yeah,” Harry said. 

Draco threw a pinch of floo powder from the bowl on top of his hearth into the fireplace and disappeared into the emerald flames.


	7. vii. Secret Garden

_January 23, 2005_

Despite the entrance requirements, it really didn’t take the most brilliant person to be a Healer. It didn’t require great study habits, although it helped. What it took was a solid disposition and more dedication than Draco thought. To be a Healer, one committed wholeheartedly and exclusively. 

It was rather like being a Death Eater in that respect, except it didn't ruin your life. 

Head Healer Forsyth Cummins taught the second-year practicum herself. Draco rather suspected it was so she could save St Mungo’s money by making sure she didn’t have to waste wages on anyone who would drop out in their third year rotations. She reminded him of Professor Snape with a broad Essex accent and without the vaguely avuncular concern.

“Trainee Forrester. Let’s say we are out of blood replenishing potions. Name me three treatments that we can use for the patient with this chart.” Healer Cummins gave a chart to a mousy brunette Draco vaguely recognized from first year Anatomy.

“Stability Potion, Oxygenation Spell, Stamina Potion,” Healer Forrester said. 

“No.” Her face fell.

“Trainee Kwanu?” 

Another trainee stepped forward who Draco actually knew. He had lent notes to Benjamin Kwanu once, which means they were practically friends as far as his interactions with other students had gone.

“Stability Potion, Regeneration Field, Stamina Drought?” Trainee Kwanu stammered. 

“No.” At least Benjamin didn’t look put out. He handed the chart back to Healer Cummins, who Draco belatedly realized was staring at him. 

“Do you need a personal invitation, Trainee Malfoy?” Healer Cummins drawled. 

A chorus of titters went up around him in the break room. Well, he wasn’t very popular, he reminded himself. He was self-conscious as he went up to look at the chart. He studied it for a few seconds. 

“Patient should be sent to negative isolation,” Draco said aloud, half to himself. 

“Why, Trainee Malfoy? Have we run out of MHS funds this early in the quarter?” Healer Cummins said, heavy and sarcastic. More laughter.

“Patient has a chronic magical-immune disease called Servius, ma’am. The ambient magic would be making them ill. The more foreign magic like potions and spells they were exposed to, the more they would deteriorate.” 

Draco waited what seemed like an eternity.

“You are correct.” Healer Cummins said quietly. “Why did you laugh, Trainee Alden?”

“I don’t know. I thought you were making fun of Trainee Malfoy ma’am,” the redhead confessed. 

“And if I made fun of him, would that make him wrong?” Healer Cummins said. “If you don’t like your colleague, you think you should disregard their medical opinions without seeing the chart yourself, mmm?” Healer Cummins said. She looked at them all in turn. 

Draco was sure his face was flaming Weasley red. He didn’t expect to be made an object lesson for their morning huddle. All he tried to do was keep his head down and qualify. 

“All of you should remember to read the charts thoroughly. Read them yourselves. Don’t let a mediwizard or another Healer convince you of what isn’t true. Not even me. They aren’t there for decoration. Off to your rounds.” Healer Cummins dismissed them. 

Draco always waited for the last person to leave. Less opportunity for him to be accidentally tripped or shoved then. 

“Death Eater scum,” Trainee Forrester said as she passed. It wasn’t particularly inventive but he couldn’t say he didn’t deserve it. 

“Trainee Forrester, Trainee Malfoy, come round.” Healer Cummins called. Well, fuck. Now he was really in trouble. She never called anyone to give them a lollipop and a job well done. Maybe he’d forgotten something yesterday? 

“Trainee Forrester, please apologize to Trainee Malfoy.” That took the wind out of his sails. He couldn’t help but shoot a puzzled glance at Healer Cummins. Trainee Forrester looked furious. 

“It’s alright,” Draco offered. 

“No, it is not alright.” Healer Cummins snapped. “Trainee Forrester?”

“I won’t apologize to him. We all know it’s true. They should have never let him in. My cousin died in the—”

“And they killed my first husband, and my brother and several of my cousins, too. Do you think you’re alone? This is not a rectory. It is a hospital. We treat _everyone_ . You must be able to work together with _everyone_ in life or death situations. You can think whatever you like. Do not speak to anyone in that manner. _Apologize._ ” Healer Cummins said. 

Draco could see the righteous indignation building up. He didn’t want to make an enemy this way. He could see what would happen when she went round to tell people how the Head Healer had punished someone for him. 

“I’m sorry.” Trainee Forrester said through gritted teeth. 

“Wonderful. Please go home. I am formally suspending you for the week. You will make it up in overtime. If you gossip about it, I’ll remove you from the program for undermining my practicum,” Healer Cummins said. Trainee Forrester left in tears. 

“Trainee Malfoy, you’ll do well to remember very few people would disagree with her. Get out of my sight.”

Draco fled to his assigned shift at Spell Damage. 

_March 4, 2005_

At best, in the Healer program Draco had a few people who tolerated sitting next to him during breaks at St Mungo’s and occasionally borrowed his notes. So he had resorted to consulting Pansy and Theo over Chinese takeaway at Theo’s flat. 

“Which rotation should I pick next year?” Draco asked. 

“If you went into the Cursebreaker/Healer stream you would make the most money,” Pansy pointed out. 

“I’ve seen enough curses in my life, thanks,” Draco remarked. The recruiters from the industry associations came by every year with offers of free brooms, event tickets and shop credits which made him uncomfortable.

“You could also go into Major Procedures,” Pansy said. Draco sighed. 

"I don’t mind Procedures, but I don’t know if I want to do them every day.” 

The idea of trying to remove people’s gallbladders every single day made him vaguely ill. The first time he helped with an appendectomy a month ago Draco waited until after his shift, vomited in the staff toilets, and seriously considered becoming a vegetarian.

“Paedetrics if you’d like to keep on with your shiny new redeemed image,” Pansy continued. “You could go work in that foundling home they named after Saint Potter.” 

“I think the term is orphans,” Draco said. He knew she mentioned Harry Potter to annoy him, though she didn’t know the details of any of their interactions on his cases. While Draco didn’t mind children he encountered in Paediatrics, he liked treating adults too. 

“How am I to keep up with all this new language? I changed the important one about blood status, so I think I’ve done quite well for myself,” Pansy sniffed. 

Draco was exasperated as she was transparently trying to be annoying and succeeding. That and she’d eaten all his ginger chicken because she’d ordered her own food too spicy. 

“I think people stopped using foundling about a century ago,” Theo said, helpfully. 

“You have to teach me these things, Theo. Draco and I are disgraced aristocrats and now you’re a man of the people,” Pansy said. Theo snorted. 

“I don’t think anyone who grew up in an estate with grounds is allowed to call himself a man of the people. That’s when people start sharpening their guillotines,” Theo said. 

The French Revolution was about when the titled Malfoys fled to England, so Theo was probably right. 

As far as Draco was concerned, Theo probably had the most functioning moral compass of the three of them since he’d been publicly disowned for not being a reactionary whiner like the rest of his ridiculous family. His mother still only allowed him around the house when his stepfather was away while publicly denouncing him, as far as Pansy said.

“Theo, what do you think I should do?” Draco asked. 

Theo paused in the middle of his bowl of mapo tofu. 

“I think you’d like something that’s got a lot of different stuff every day. I don’t know if you’d be satisfied knowing a lot about one area,” Theo said. “Is there something like that?”

Honestly, what the fuck did Theo do at the Department of Mysteries all day that gave him insights like that?

_March 15, 2005_

Over time with their consultations, Draco saw Harry in all kinds of situations. Many where Harry should be objectively unattractive to him. 

At present in Grimmauld Place’s kitchen, Draco was examining a strange necklace under protective spells that may or may not have anything to do with a rash of vandalism. Harry was standing and eating because Draco had taken up the entire table. Harry was shovelling food in his mouth at a ground speed only previously recorded with Ronald Weasley during a Halloween feast. 

Draco still found him attractive. He should really get Melinda to explain this to him. Again. His hair, even now, was messy in a way that made him want to pull it, in a distinctly inappropriate fashion. 

“You shouldn’t eat so fast. You’ll give yourself digestive problems. ” The Healer in him jumped out before Draco could stop himself, as Harry polished off the last of his goulash. 

“Haven’t eaten all day. Sorry, bad habit,” Harry shrugged.

“What, did they starve you as a child?” Draco had meant it as a dark joke, but the ensuing silence was answer enough. Gods, no wonder no one liked him. 

“Were they poor?” Draco asked gently. It was probably the closest they had come to personal topics recently and apparently Draco had led them straight to Childhood Trauma. 

Draco had heard rumours that the Muggles Harry was related to weren’t great, but he’d assumed that had been a combination of exaggerations to make Harry Potter seem even more heroic and simple anti-Muggle prejudice. 

“No,” Harry said quietly. “It was a punishment. I forget to eat sometimes when I’m stressed.”

Even in the Muggle world there were supposed to be social programmes to prevent that sort of treatment. To do that deliberately to a child at all was a cruelty even he couldn’t imagine. To do it so often that years later Harry forgot to eat, well, anything Draco was thinking was a firm violation of his Healer’s Oath. 

“I’m sorry,” Draco said.

“Not your fault, is it? It was a long time ago,” Harry said. “What about the necklace?”

“It’s barely magical,” Draco said. 

He had run a few scans with his wands, poked at it with his magic, checked its properties and removed some of the protective spells. The whole thing made him queasy until he was certain it was a dud. The necklace was a hideous, heavy thing made of goblin wrought silver, crystal and genuine giant sapphires the size of a knut. There were similar pieces of jewelry the Malfoys had in their vault but nothing that was so tasteless. Without a doubt, it had been chosen to look expensive rather than nice. 

“But we were told it used to be a literal death wish. A gift from a Gaunt a century back to her mother-in-law,” Harry said. 

“How charming,” Draco said, dryly. 

Harry brought out his wand and poked at the necklace, too. He had never had a man’s wandwork make him pay attention; his was efficient, thorough and powerful. For a second, he could feel the distinct golden warmth of Harry’s magic press against his own and Draco fought the urge to lean into it. Draco shook his head instead.

“Look, I know the Gaunts were Dark zealots since time immemorial. I have no doubt that the necklace was once cursed but I can’t feel a cursebreaker’s signature on this. Putting it on wouldn’t even give you a headache,” Draco explained. 

“That’s what my colleague said,” Harry admitted reluctantly. “It’s not going to reactivate and behead someone is it?”

“My fee is a tenner for miracles, Potter.”

It always felt better to have Harry off guard when Draco was leaving.


	8. viii. Awakening

_May 5, 2005_

The Special Task Force descended on a shipping container on the Greenwich Peninsula near midnight. There were mostly muggle flats here, and a cable car for tourists that was closed. So far, all their operations had been surveillance and the occasional questioning of a stray low-level operative who inevitably knew nothing but wasted their time. Most of the information that came in was useless or after the fact. Minister for Magic Dale Steel was getting impatient. 

A reliable informant told them that one of the more dangerous cells, Prima, would be meeting here tonight to conclude planning a bombing of the Muggleborn Resource Centre in Central London. Kingsley had appointed Athena the point person which made Harry nervous. She was good. She was very good. But she was not an Auror. 

Athena, Zacharias, Penny and Harry were crouched on the banks of the Thames, fully Disillusioned about 30 metres from a bright yellow shipping container. 

“Wait,” Kingsley said into charmed earpieces. They waited. Five minutes, fifteen minutes, thirty minutes. 

“Will the command centre give us orders to proceed? ” Athena whispered. She sounded impatient, a little growl underlying her tone. Harry could barely see the shimmer he thought was her ahead. 

Penny was somewhere to his left. Zacharias shifted in the water somewhere behind him and Harry fought the urge to kick him. Even a muffling spell might tip off someone that they were there so he needed to stop moving. 

“Navy.” Kingsley said using Athena’s operation nickname “Wait.”

Harry heard everyone’s gentle breaths over the earpiece. 

“I can try to get closer,” Zacharias whispered. The charm made it sound like he was speaking directly in Harry’s ear and he hated it. 

“Stand down, Crimson,” Kingsley said. They were supposed to keep the channels as quiet as possible just in case

Harry felt Zacharias brush past him but missed him when he went to grab onto his cloak. 

“Crimson,” Penny hissed at him. The water moved softly to Harry’s left. 

If Harry squinted, he could see the movement of light that meant Zacharias was almost at the shipping container. 

“Canary, Pine, Navy let Crimson take point. Move to cover,” Kingsley said. 

If Harry was nervous about Athena leading them, he was downright furious about Zacharias leading them. Zacharias shouldn’t lead them out of a fucking Quidditch match much less on their only operation. Harry moved a metre away from the container, as quietly as he could, calves burning. His wand was out. 

It was only a split second where Harry saw the outline of Zacharias with his wand raised as he rested one hand on the corner of the shipping container. Why could Harry see Zacharias at all? Shouldn’t there be—

The loudest noise Harry had ever heard boomed from the shipping container and the yellow metal went to pieces like a child blowing confetti. Harry had cast a shield charm out of pure instinct and dropped into the water grabbing at Penny and Athena roughly. He could feel the crackle of his earpiece but he couldn’t hear a damned thing. He could see nothing but bright spots in his vision. Shrapnel rained overhead but Harry kept his face in the water for several long minutes. Penny rolled away and leapt up. 

It had been a trap. If they had been inside they would all be dead. 

Harry looked up to watch Penny fireman carry Zacharias’ prone body on the shore. She gave the hand signal and Disapparated. Before he could think about it, Athena had held onto his waist and side-along apparated with him too. 

When they landed at St Mungo’s Auror wing, Harry collapsed. Healers surrounded him in a swirl of lime green robes but he couldn't hear a damn thing. Blood was trickling out of his ears, sticky and hot. He used the last of his strength to cast a patronus to Kingsley.

The Healers fixed him up fine. No permanent damage to his vision or hearing somehow. Harry looked for Draco but a small mousy Healer Trainee reluctantly told him he wasn't working. After making sure he was stable enough he Apparated home and slept. 

_May 6, 2005_

Kingsley wrote him that they would be working out of a safehouse from here on out and he only managed to memorize the address before the note disintegrated in his hands in a puff of purple smoke. He was more comfortable in Muggle clothes, and wore a pair of jeans, Nikes and a plain black t-shirt to blend in with the crowds. 

He arrived at an unfurnished upmarket Borough Market loft that unlocked as he approached. The walls were still shimmering with wards and the one bedroom appeared to be set up for each of them to have separate work stations. 

Harry glanced around at their outfits. 

Zacharias was also wearing a highlighter yellow long sleeve shirt that said “COOL” in red letters, dress shoes and khaki shorts which would draw attention from any Muggle. Had Zacharias failed Stealth? He should have, the bastard. 

Penelope was dressed in a pink maxi dress and ankle boots. She had piled all her long blonde curls in a bun on her head. Athena wore dark jeans and a long sleeve white t-shirt. Kingsley was dressed in a black Adidas tracksuit. 

“At the same time the shipping container at Greenwich was bombed, the Muggleborn Resource Centre was bombed by Prima. Five of the Muggle information booths in Central London were also bombed. There were no casualties. We are incredibly lucky this time. It will get worse.” Kingsley was barely speaking above a whisper.

“That operation was a complete disaster. You all could have been killed with nothing to show for it. If I say wait, I mean wait. If I say hang on, you better fucking well hang on,” Kingsley said. “Are we clear?”

He glared at every single one of them in turn. Harry felt chastised even though he had listened to Kingsley. Penny met his eyes and looked away. Athena met his eyes, too. 

“Yes, sir,” they said in chorus. 

“The reason we are using a safehouse is because this is far more dangerous. Don’t any of you forget this. Someone is playing games with us deliberately. Prima knows we are tracking them and has the resources to feed us false information,” Kingsley continued. Zacharias snorted. 

“Do you have something to say, Smith?”

“I thought the person who is showing parts of our investigation to a former Death Eater would be the first place I’d look, sir.” 

Penny rolled her eyes. Harry did not miss the allusion to Draco and he avoided turning to the side to glare at him. Zacharias knew Draco had not been the one to give them this information. Just because Zacharias was a fuck up that nearly got everyone killed didn’t mean he should blame other people. 

“I see. I don’t recall asking you. Any other thoughts?” Kingsley asked. “Would you like to question my judgement some more?” 

Kingsley paused until it was uncomfortable. Zacharias turned a deeply unattractive shade of puce and looked away. 

“I didn’t mean it that way. No, sir.” 

“I would be fascinated to know which way you could have possibly meant it. From now on, Potter and Meadowes will be on field duty. Smith and Clearwater will be on support. All seven bombs were powered by Dark artefacts. Find out how.” 

Harry and Zacharias stared each other down and then Harry claimed a desk in the living room. Penny claimed the desk beside him, which left the dining room set up for Athena and Zacharias. 

_June 5, 2005_

Harry should have firecalled. But he was getting so consumed with work nowadays. 

A month of investigation and they still couldn’t figure out how they were using Dark objects to make bombs. There had been a few more incidents, mostly copycats who had gone for smaller targets like the Muggle section of Flourish & Blotts. People were starting to get very worried. Minister Steel seemed near sacking them all to have something to show to the public. 

Harry strode into St Mungo’s at 3 pm wearing the standard-issue Auror field cloak after a twelve hour surveillance shift and asked for Healer Malfoy. The witch allowed him into Draco’s office in the family medical ward upon seeing his badge. Draco was bent over a chart wearing silver wire-framed spectacles. 

“You are not Maria Carvaggio,” Draco said, dryly. Had Draco’s eyes always been that alluring shade of grey? Since when did he wear glasses?

“When are you done work? I have something to consult you on,” Harry said.

“Why didn’t you Owl? Have you slept?” Draco asked. If Harry was being very honest with himself, there was something about the combination of glasses and the stern Healer voice that was doing something for him. 

“I will next time. I should have. Sorry. I need you to look at some evidence when you have a chance,” Harry said.

“I’ll be at your place at 7 pm,” Draco said. “And Harry? Get some sleep. You look terrible,” Draco added. Apparently they were on a permanent first name basis.

Harry got to Grimmauld, showered, and ate an apple (and a sleeve of biscuits). He fell asleep before he even got into bed and slept face down on top of his duvet before jerking awake. 

When he walked out, Draco was sitting in his kitchen reading a book. The wards must have let him in. It was nearly 8 pm now according to his kitchen clock. Harry waited a second, enjoying the curve of his neck and savoring the idea of Draco being in his space. Merlin, he was a good looking man. _Oh fuck._

“Close your mouth if you’re going to stare,” Draco said, not looking up from his book. 

“I wasn’t staring,” Harry said. Draco ruined the whole picture by speaking, Harry told himself. 

“How are you an Auror if you can’t tell a lie?” Draco asked. 

“Have you eaten dinner?” Harry asked, bypassing Draco’s ability to derail even the simplest conversation. 

“No.” Draco finally looked up at him with those piercing eyes. 

Harry looked in the fridge. Lettuce, eggs, olives, tomatoes, green beans...he should definitely roast that aubergine tomorrow, and do something with the parsley. He looked in the pantry and he did have tinned tuna. 

“Are you allergic to anything?”

“You don’t have to make me dinner,” Draco protested. 

Harry took a page out of his book and ignored that since Draco didn’t say he wasn’t hungry. Less than fifteen minutes later he had a passable nicoise salad for the both of them. 

“Thank you,” Draco said. 

Harry didn’t think he had ever seen Draco eat before and he tried to focus on his own food but it was like dining with the Queen. Harry was trying to follow his advice about eating slower.

Draco ate very, very neatly as if it were important to cut a perfect square out of each leaf of lettuce and compose the perfect bite. It was almost endearing. If he caught Harry looking this time, Draco said nothing. 

“What horrible evidence have you brought for me this time? A hellhound’s head? Three Dark magic infused slippers? The cursed knickers of my late Aunt Bellatrix?” Draco said as they finished dinner. 

Harry rolled his eyes at him. 

“I didn’t bring you that kind of evidence.” Harry fished the shrunken redacted reports out of his pockets and laid them out on the kitchen table before tapping them with his wand 

“The bombings last month were fueled by Dark objects. Someone has found a way to convert their magical energy from its intended purpose to pure destruction.”

"I thought it was illegal to own this?" Draco asked, pointing to one of the photographs of a cursed and very hideous medieval breastplate that had crushed at least three owners to death. Harry shrugged. 

"Spirit or letter of the law?" Harry said. 

"Both," Draco said. His white trainee Healer robes should have looked ghastly with Draco's colouring, but he was handsome as ever. 

"Technically legal. No one is pleased about the clause exempting cursed objects for heritage reasons. But it would go elsewhere in MLE if it were less powerful and to the Department of Mysteries if it were more arcane. The making-a-bomb part is very illegal though and these are uncommonly powerful." 

Draco was lost in thought.

“I can’t know for certain, but that kind of item...” Draco tapped a photo of a grandfather clock imbued with Dark magic that had been in the resource centre. 

“It’s clearly a Dark object, but it wouldn’t naturally hold that much power,” Draco said, as if it was extremely obvious. 

“Because...” Harry began. It was like talking to Hermione sometimes. 

“Because the amount of magic you imbue an object is limited by the magical properties of its materials. You can make an ordinary thing dangerous but not powerful. Even a wandtree doesn’t have this much magic.” 

“None of the attacks have been fatal yet, correct?” Draco asked. Harry nodded. 

There had been incredibly close calls and people had been hurt but no one had died yet. Why had no one died yet? Why did they keep finding all these Dark objects? 

“I could kiss you,” Harry said fervently. 

“You have to buy me dinner first. Good night,” Draco answered. Was that flirting? Was Draco flirting with Harry or was he messing with him?

Draco disappeared into the floo before Harry could find out for certain.


	9. ix. Written on Water

_September 30, 2005_

Draco was studying for one of his mid-term exams for this year in the solar, when the owl came from the Ministry directly to his mother. She was taking afternoon tea with him before going back out to the garden. As the brown Ministry owl swooped in through the open window, Draco had thought for a second Harry might have written him from work instead of using his owl Gideon. But then his mother read the letter first and sat right back down in her chair. Draco grabbed it from her hands and began scanning: 

_There was an outbreak of dragon pox in Azkaban. We regret to inform you that Lucius Abraxas Malfoy died in custody as of last night. Our condolences on this loss. We recognize this may be a difficult time but we ask that you kindly make timely arrangements to retrieve—_

He did not read the rest of the letter. He could not read the rest of the letter. He held his mother while she sobbed until his robes were wet with tears and her voice was almost gone. 

“He left me alone. Why would he leave me all alone?” She could barely speak. 

Draco made gentle shushing noises, led her to her rooms and gave her a sleeping draft for her nerves. He collapsed outside of her room, expecting it was his turn to cry. But nothing came. He supposed he should have told his mother she was not alone, but Draco didn’t count in the way she meant. 

His father, who had loomed large over him all his life, was _gone_. 

They had fought fiercely in person the last time they saw each other. After escaping the Battle of Hogwarts and the family had sat up crying, Draco had hoped there would be some admission of guilt in general for what they had all seen. Some admission of complicity in their suffering. Instead, his father drank himself into a stupor until he was arrested three days later. 

Lucius had been deemed too dangerous for visitors. They both sent inquiries through Narcissa. Something foundational had fractured in their relationship and Draco had refused to apologize for it. Maybe that was a mistake. He would never know now.

He had kept a single photo of them on his dresser, taken sometime around his fifth year at Hogwarts at some function. His father straightened Draco’s dress robes and smiled at him. 

He knew Lucius Malfoy had not been healthy. He’d asked for and received all of his medical records in Azkaban. He had developed serious tremors as a side-effect of dark curses. Unlike Draco’s, they hadn't faded. His father walked with a cane and had a small seizure shortly after his first year in prison. 

Reciting the facts, as terrible as they were, reassured him. Dragonpox was only supposed to be dangerous to children and the elderly. You could add extra willow bark to a standard pain potion on the early stages, Draco thought. But it must have been too late to suppress the fever. He would have hallucinated before his organs failed one by one. 

Many of his classmates went for placement in Azkaban, people who had raised their hands in lectures and talked about patient advocacy and prison conditions. Draco had never really understood how people could feel unfairness that deeply for anyone who had been the worst of wizarding society, himself included. 

Still, he wondered if one of those classmates had held his father's hand as he died. 

The next morning he made it to the kitchen where owls had borne all the flower arrangements. Lilies, snapdragons, snapping hydrangeas, wildflowers. Gilding everywhere. With condolences, sorry for your loss, our sympathies. One basket stuck out. It looked forlorn in a black clay planter, more of a plant. Out of habit from intake rotation at St Mungo’s, he scanned it with his wand. An ordinary peace lily. 

With terrible penmanship, the card read: 

_I am sorry for your loss. If there is anything in my power I could do for you or your mother, please let me know._

_\- Harry James Potter of Godric’s Hollow_

_Oh_. Harry had even signed it the proper way with his family’s ancestral home. The traditions were all mostly rubbish anyway, but someone must have told him the custom. He moved the peace lily to his bedroom. To make sure he watered it, he told himself. 

Draco firecalled Melinda the day after.

Draco and his mother had decided to hold the memorial within a week. Pansy and Theodore both sent over their house-elves to prepare the Manor for visitors. Nothing could be done about the general state of disrepair. There was no money to be re-staining floors and replacing sconces. Between his tuition and his reparation payments, they were lucky to have held onto the Manor at all. 

“There should be more flowers,” Narcissa said. 

There were flowers everywhere. They had coaxed the garden to bloom and multiplied them. All the arrangements had been placed under a stasis spell and arranged in accordance of closeness to the family. Only he and his mother would attend the burial. 

“There are enough flowers,” Draco insisted. But he knew it wasn't about the flowers. 

The burial was simple enough. According to his wishes, Lucius was placed in an unlined pine box in the family crypt on the edge of their estate. The symbolic pyre was lit with their wands touching. His mother leaned on him the whole time, clasping his arm for strength. 

His mother looked like the old her, and Draco found it unsettling. Her white hair was set in cascading curls, her lipstick was fire engine red and she had used all the glamours she’d once favoured. She had no laugh lines or freckles. Her long nails matched her lipstick, far from the short plain and neat style she favoured these days because she spent most of her time gardening. 

She looked every inch Lucius Malfoy’s wife and he suspected that was the armour she was using to get through today. 

“I wish that both of you could have...” Narcissa trailed off, watching the flames dance. 

“He couldn’t admit he was wrong,” Draco said. “He never once said he was sorry for what I went through.”

“He regretted it every day of his life,” she said. 

“He had a funny way of showing it,” Draco said. He desperately wanted to stop the torrent of resentment because it seemed inappropriate, but it was picking up speed the more he thought about it. He thought he’d finished it during his emergency therapy appointment but resentment was a bottomless hungry thing. 

“I know,” she said. Lucius Malfoy had let her down too, in many ways. She spoke again. 

“You know that our marriage was arranged?” Draco nodded. 

“I didn’t love him when we first married. We knew each other but not terribly well and he didn’t open up to me. I didn’t open up to him either. I didn’t really know how. I had never been taught to be vulnerable in any significant way,” his mother confessed. Despite himself, he was curious. 

“What changed then?”

“It was really, really difficult for me to get pregnant. I took all kinds of illegal potions because I wanted a child. He stopped me and said that it didn’t matter to him either way and he didn’t want me to put my own life in danger.”

He had known there was a reason he was an only child but not the details. They never discussed things like that with him. 

“His father told him to cast me aside and find another pureblood woman who could bear him children. At the time, Lucius would have had the right to break our marriage contract. Abraxas even told him to take a mistress if he insisted on keeping me in the house. That would have been acceptable too,” she said. 

There was her own bitterness there for his paternal grandfather that his mother had shut up tight when he was a child. He was fascinated that apparently all this had gone on and he’d never noticed a tension between them. But her story wasn’t done. 

“When we found out we were having a baby, he said that he wanted to be a better father than Abraxas. He wanted to make sure that he loved you unconditionally. He loved you more than anything in the world, but he didn’t always succeed in telling you. He also didn’t understand that parents should apologize to children. That was his father’s influence.”

His mother had apologized to him, but then again, they'd had the time. 

The last log collapsed into the pyre with a spray of sparks. Draco wiped the few tears that had slipped out.

“Should we go inside?” Draco asked. 

“Just a couple minutes longer,” she murmured. 

Draco stood in the ballroom with his mother in deep black robes an hour later, receiving people he hadn’t seen in decades. People he’d rather not see at all. But they were all bound by the same customs. At least, no one would ask him questions or make remarks where he could hear it. They all offered their condolences, and their respect.

Aunt Andromeda came in late. She wore a black silk Muggle dress and made no concessions to a traditional funeral otherwise. She was unadorned and stood out among the peacock feather hats and heavy heirloom necklaces and brooches encrusted with jewels. But she had shown up at all. Looks and whispers followed her around the room. 

“I am sorry for your loss,” Andromeda said once she made her way to the front of the receiving line. Her face betrayed no emotion. She offered them a bow as everyone else had. 

They hadn’t spoken in years. It was meant to be an insult to come dressed like this. At the same time, no one would have expected her sister to show up at all. She had hated Lucius Malfoy and made no secret of it. 

“Thank you for coming,” His mother said. She seemed a little overcome, and Draco steadied her with a hand on her back.

“No one could come when Ted died. I didn’t think even you deserved that,” Andromeda said. A chill crept into her voice and his mother looked chastened. It was so strange to witness. After all these years estranged they still sounded alike. 

It must have taken a lot to come here, Draco thought.

“It’s not like I could miss this pit of vipers,” Andromeda added. 

Andromeda stared at a lesser Rosier cousin who had clearly been eavesdropping and turned her back to him. For someone who had left the pureblood inner circle decades ago, Aunt Andromeda still knew how to deliver a cut direct. The cousin scampered away. 

“Perhaps...perhaps we could have tea sometime,” Narcissa offered, her voice wavering. 

“Don’t mistake this for something it’s not,” Andromeda snapped in a low, hurt voice. Instead of cutting through the room the way she came, she exited the door to the garden. 

They continued thanking people. Laid out in front of him, he could see the divide between who had faced consequences and those who had largely got away with it. Both the Goyles were there. The Parkinsons came forward together, although without Pansy. Adora Nott greeted them by herself which meant her husband wasn’t around as he wasn’t allowed to trade in Britain. Anneliese Crabbe was by herself. There were widows everywhere but there should have been more of them. It was a nasty thing to think but he felt it. 

Pansy and Theo swept in together so late there was barely anyone left but their house-elves, tidying up the remaining refreshments. His mother hugged both of them, kissing the tops of their heads. 

“Thank you for everything,” his mother said. 

If either of them found this spontaneous display of affection strange they didn’t say anything. Pansy turned a little pink but allowed it. Theo hugged her back fully which surprised Draco. There had been bows, air kisses, pats on the shoulder and hands held but no real hugs all day. His mother wiped away the few tears that sprang to her eye. 

“You should all go rest, I’ll oversee the house-elves packing up,” his mother said. 

“Gobstones?” Pansy offered to Draco. She hadn’t bothered repeating all the sentimental nonsense Draco had heard all day and he loved her for it. 

“Are we children?” Draco said, just to be annoying. 

“I had the worst burn marks the last time she tricked me into playing. Pansy’s version is strictly for adults,” Theo said.

“We need your expertise, Healer Malfoy. Let’s go to your room,” Pansy said, taking his hand. She offered him a reassuring squeeze. 

“I’m not a licensed Healer yet,” Draco said. But he followed them.

As he looked back, Draco caught his mother staring at the garden as if Andromeda might return. 


	10. x. Catch-22

_ November 10, 2005 _

The search for the Hallows had been quicker than this investigation. The Special Task Force knew someone was probably deliberately messing with Dark objects and their power and targeting muggleborns but not for death. To what end, they had no idea. 

“You can’t absorb it, yeah? Object magic isn’t human magic especially when it’s settled in something for years and years. It’s not like you can make yourself Grindelwald by using Dark objects like oil in a lamp,” Athena said. 

“Well, thank fuck for that,” Penny said. 

“You’re not supposed to be able to channel Dark magic into bombs or drain cursed objects either,” Zacharias pointed out. Harry was inclined to agree. 

“No, it’s theoretically possible. We simply don’t know how,” Athena explained. Unspeakables, Harry decided, were the bullshit academics of the Ministry. 

“If no one knows how, it’s basically impossible!” Penny said.

“It’s magic,” Harry cracked. No one found it very funny.

“Let’s look at this another way. Give me places of interest. Potter can take the consultant to anything that looks promising,” Kingsley said. 

“Do we have a cover for that?” Penny asked. She sounded worried whenever anyone was going to be anywhere but the safe house. 

“Harry will come up with something if it’s an issue,” Kingsley said dismissively. Harry probably would. He was antsy after sitting indoors for a week re-reading and compiling all the evidence in light of the theory that the objects were more important than the crimes itself. 

_ Draco, we will have to meet in person to examine a site. Are you free in the next week - Harry _

_ Harry, we can meet on Tuesday evening. Do they charge you a Galleon for using question marks? - Draco _

_ Very funny. Tuesdays I see my godson. Any other day? I’ll buy dinner. - H  _

_ I’ll sacrifice my Saturday night then. I’ll come to your floo at 7 and we can leave together. You’ll always be buying dinner. - D _

It wasn’t until they were walking in Hogsmeade that Harry was aware that he had forgotten one key thing: their cover. People looked at them askance which was fair enough given who he was and who he was with. 

As they made their way down the lane, Harry caught a shadow in his peripheral vision. One hundred metres, two hundred metres, a dark flash. There was someone following them, Harry noted. He draped Draco’s arm over his shoulder and whispered in his ear. Draco flushed pink. 

“We are being followed. Let me see if I can throw them off.” The flushing didn’t subside. If anything it got worse as it spread down his neck. 

“Isn’t this intimate? We are in public,” Draco said. He wasn’t trained like Harry was, so Harry saw him glance to where the person surveilling them was. Harry gently nudged him to stop. Draco was practically vibrating with anxiety. 

“It’s better if a few people think we’re romantically involved than that you’re an agent or selling secrets. Alright?” Harry said.

“Alright,” Draco agreed. 

Harry wobbled convincingly on his feet, so Draco was forced to hold him up while they walked along in Hogsmeade. Harry was taking advantage of the circumstances a little. He didn’t need to have his whole side pressed against Draco to pretend he was drunk, but it felt nice. 

“Is Harry Potter not just friends with anyone?” Draco said. Draco sounded annoyed, but Harry would not turn to face him and find out.

“Not according to the Prophet, no.” Harry said. The footsteps were still behind them. 

Someone was not doing a good job of keeping the edge of their invisibility cloak on the ground on the cobblestones. Harry, without words, directed Draco to a side lane leading to a public apparition point. Harry was certain he had never been close enough to him to see the exact shade of grey that his eyes were. 

“I apologize,” Harry whispered. It could have been his imagination, but Draco shivered. “May I kiss you?”

Draco looked confused for a split second and then nodded. 

To be honest, Harry was truly not sorry about kissing up the side of Draco’s neck until he found his mouth. There were other distractions he could have used that did not involve tracing Draco Malfoy’s collarbone with his teeth. But he was exhausted and this was quick. 

Harry was pleasantly surprised with Draco's performance. Draco never did anything by half measures. His kiss was sweet, decadent and a little bit filthy. Draco bit his bottom lip and Harry drew him even closer so there was no space between their bodies. Harry was struggling to divide his awareness and failing especially when Draco slipped him the barest hint of tongue. 

Harry could admit to himself this is not quite how he ever imagined kissing Draco late at night but this was much, much better because it was real, even if it was pretense. Also, not that he was that invested but surely Draco was a little into him, right? There had been signs.

“He’s gone,” Draco whispered after pulling away. Harry thought about carrying on for a moment longer but stopped. 

"Good," Harry said, out of breath. 

“Tell me Harry, is that an official diversionary tactic?” Draco said. It pleased Harry that he sounded affected by their kiss, even though he felt a little guilty. 

“An Auror uses every trick at their disposal,” Harry said. He shot a smile to Draco who still looked flustered. 

“Doesn’t it bother whoever you’re seeing that you kiss other people?” Draco asked. Well, Draco read the papers and had probably seen a string of relationships that never worked out past a month and a few people Harry wasn’t even sure he knew. 

“I’m not dating anyone,” Harry admitted. He currently spent a ridiculous amount of hours doing investigations and all his spare time went to his friends or Teddy. Besides, he had a job he couldn’t talk about and his favourite hobbies were running and magical home renovation. 

“Oliver Wood?” Draco asked. 

“We broke up. He’s overseas,” Harry said casually. Was Draco jealous? 

“Your job is horrid and has no boundaries,” Draco muttered. 

“Are you seeing anyone?” Harry asked. Draco had said yes to the kiss, but Harry really should have asked before someone showed up on his doorstep to fight.

“The last person I was seeing is now happily married,” Draco said. There were only so many weddings recently, unlike right after the war. 

“You and Blaise Zabini?” Harry said incredulously. Not because it was out of the realm of believability but them together must have been like looking at the sun. Harry’s brain was filled with images of them doing things that he shouldn’t be thinking about. Especially if he was hours from his own bed. 

“It could have been Astoria. We had a marriage contract when we were children,” Draco said. 

“Do you want me to respond to that politely?” Harry asked. 

“Let’s go see this building,” Draco said instead. 

They didn’t find a single thing. Together, they decided that dinner would be more fun in Muggle London without the staring. It remained a wonderful night. 

_ November 13, 2005 _

Harry stumbled into the Burrow slightly late because he had overslept after staying out too late. Molly didn’t greet him and Harry had learned that expression meant that he was in trouble. She loved him like a son but she wouldn't hesitate to give him a tongue lashing. 

“Good morning Molly,” Harry said. He kissed her cheek. 

“Don’t you ‘good morning’ me, Harry. I won’t ask about it because you’re an adult and you’re too old for me to meddle in your life,” Molly said. “But for Circe’s sake keep your affairs indoors. Drinking and necking in public like a teenager.”

Molly threw the Prophet on the kitchen table. Harry wanted to sink into the floor and die. He’d known their chosen cover was going to lead to gossip, but he hadn’t realized there would be a full front page with him kissing Draco in it. Molly had been perfectly accepting of everything else, but apparently drew the line at public displays of affection. 

“What was wrong with Oliver Wood? He’s a nice boy. I’ve met his parents!” Molly said. This apparently did not count as meddling. 

“There was nothing wrong with him. I’m just not seeing Oliver anymore,” Harry said. 

“Well, you may do what you like, but that boy will not be setting foot in my home,” Molly added.

“Molly,” Arthur said, with a slight pleading tone. “Obviously Harry—”

“Not unless you were to  _ marry _ ,” Molly said as if the idea was ridiculous. Harry caught himself. It was ridiculous. The sensible thing would have been to say ‘sorry, though I’d love it, he’s not my boyfriend’ but alas it was part of a top secret mission. 

The headline was “OPPOSITES ATTRACT. Is the Saviour enjoying a little taste of the dark side?”

Harry swallowed hard. He was faced with the black and white loop of him pressing his hips against Draco and angling his mouth open greedily. Harry's scar was visible, so there could be no doubt it was him. Had he really pulled the collar of Draco's shirt down? God, he looked like he was three seconds from having his way with him in the alley. 

“Doesn’t look like they were looking to get married,” Ginny offered, looking over Harry's shoulder. Traitor. Dean Thomas, her new boyfriend, wisely said nothing. 

“I’d say,” George chimed in, after taking a look at the paper. Angelina swatted him on the arm. 

“Leave him alone. He is allowed to take lovers at his age. His job is very stressful!” Fleur said indignantly. 

Harry appreciated the passion employed in his defense but it definitely didn’t help . Ginny sniggered. Molly and Arthur looked like they were ready to faint.

“Ron and I have news!” Hermione said. Everyone stopped looking at Harry. Harry shot her a grateful look which she met evenly, and continued. 

“I had to wait a few weeks to be sure, but I’m pregnant!” Hermione announced. 

Immediately everyone shifted to congratulating them and making inquiries after her health. Molly embraced Hermione and rained kisses on her face, suitably distracted from Harry’s misdeeds. Ron received a fatherly shoulder pat from Arthur. 

“My mum is going to kill me when she realizes we told the Weasleys first,” Hermione told him. 

“Thanks for the rescue. Your baby will have the nicest nursery in all of Britain,” Harry promised. 

“Good. Ron is crap at home reno and I don’t want him to stress himself out,” Hermione said. 

“I heard that!” Ron said. But she flushed prettily when Ron kissed her on the cheek. Hermione was starting to have that glow, Harry thought. 

“In my defense, she brought me to Ikea once I set a budget. It’s all confusing muggle instructions by evil Norwegians to boot.”

“They are Swedish,” Hermione corrected.

“Evil Scandis, then. Excellent at crime dramas, absolute flaming rubbish at making straightforward furniture. So many permanent sticking charms on that storage unit,” Ron said. 

“Do you have a crib? I could buy the wood and make it, easy enough,” Harry proposed. It wouldn’t be that much harder than when he had redone the built in bookcases upstairs. Hermione could do most of the safety charm work and would probably insist on it. A nice natural beechwood would suit. 

“That’s....that’s a really lovely offer, Harry. We’d love that,” Hermione said. Hermione and Ron both beamed at him. 

“Unrelatedly, I know it might be work-related, but let us know if you need to talk about  _ y’know _ ,” Ron added. So at least one person had worked out that something was up other than a sudden passion for public canoodling.

“I can’t, but thank you,” Harry said. Ron and Hermione exchanged glances.

“Well, if you wanted to bring him to dinner at ours, that would be okay. We’ll always be your friend and there’s no conditional welcome,” Hermione added. 

"I can put up with the bastard. Can't be all bad if you like him," Ron said. That was...honestly more mature than Harry would have given him credit for. 

It was a grave injustice that once again, his job actually prevented him from discussing the complicated mess Harry had made of his silly crush. Draco was right. His job really did have no boundaries. Harry plastered on an expression he hoped approximated a smile. Fucking fuck. 

Ron didn’t corner him to talk about child development and the parenting books he was reading until his third hour of breakfast, so all in all a success. 

_ November 17, 2005 _

Athena had brought back an object from the site she surveyed. A shiny silver twist of metal that looked like something Hermione kept on the mantle of her flat with Ron. 

“What are we even looking at?” Zacharias asked. 

Kingsley was at the Ministry doing some paperwork and consulting of his own, so the rest of them were in his workstation in the master bedroom staring at this...thing layered under protective spells. 

“It looks like a giant earring,” Penny observed. “What kind of magic, Meadowes?”

“I can’t tell. Its aura is a brown cloud. It’s like someone took a lot of different magics and steamrolled it into this thing. It’s plain steel too.”

“Why is everything about this case so strange?” Harry asked. 

“Why don’t you ask your boyfriend what he thinks?” It wouldn’t do to respond to Zacharias’ needling. Harry knew what Zacharias was doing. Prick. 

“You always have to run your mouth. Leave off, Smith.” Penny said. Famously a go-along-to-get-along kind of person, she had much less patience for him since the Greenwich Docks raid. 

“Shut up, Zacharias,” Athena said, more succinctly. 

“What? He’s not denying it. He kissed him on the front page of the Prophet,” Zacharias continued.

“Don’t be like that,” Penny said. She walked out of the room seemingly tired of this conversation. 

“We were being followed and that was the best cover,” Harry forced out between gritted teeth. 

“Between us, when Draco gets on his knees, does he—” 

Harry had whipped his wand out but Athena was a touch faster. Her wand was pressed against Zacharias’ throat with Harry’s below. Harry’s blood was boiling. 

“You’re getting on my nerves, mate. I said, shut up,” Athena said. 

Zacharias’ gaze darted from Athena to Harry. He pushed their hands down and they let him, lowering their wands to the ground. Kingsley would be furious if they actually laid hands on him. 

“It was just a joke,” Zacharias muttered and wandered into his workstation.

“That’s what I thought,” Athena said to Zacharias’ retreating back. She turned to Harry. 

“Finish your written report so Penny can send it on,” Athena said to Harry. 


	11. xi. Death at Intervals

_ December 31, 2006 _

Draco had worked Christmas covering the emergency department. It was simple enough. Domestic disputes, cooking accidents and a few heart attacks. His mother had been invited to France with some distant relatives for Christmas week and he hadn’t wanted to interrupt, even if he was technically welcome. 

They gave him New Year’s Eve off to make up for it, so he called Pansy to come drink the wine from the cellar that wasn’t worth selling. He generally avoided drinking more than two glasses since it interfered with his sleeping potion, but with Pansy’s encouragement he had necked most of a bottle himself when they stopped gossiping and started really talking. 

“Why do you keep helping him, Draco? Are you trying to atone for your sins? You’ve done enough. Whatever Potter is up to will get him killed eventually. The crater from that bombing six months ago is still smoking,” Pansy said. 

“I know what I’m doing,” Draco answered. 

“You know that you don’t have to answer for your father?” Pansy said. 

He did know. The grief over his father came in waves and felt wild, strange and deep. But Draco wasn’t motivated by grief to  _ do _ anything. It washed over him when he least expected it.

“I haven’t been,” Draco said. 

“Merlin and Morgana. You have feelings for Harry. You care for him,” Pansy accused. 

“Do you have feelings for Theo?” Draco countered. 

Usually Theo would be with them on New Year’s Eve, but he was on a secret holiday with his mum and finally they could talk about the elephant in the room. Draco wasn't the only one who was dealing with inconvenient feelings. 

“Don’t bring that up. I am talking about your life, not mine. I am not rushing headlong into danger,” Pansy said fiercely. 

“What happened to ‘do what you must to live with yourself?’,” Draco said echoing her words the night Voldemort died and chaos had reigned. Vincent had died then, too. So much death surrounded him. Fuck he was getting melancholy. Perhaps opening bottle number two had been too much. 

"I didn't mean get yourself killed, Draco," Pansy said. 

“He needs my help,” Draco said. It sounded pathetic to his own ears.

“And you’re hoping that might mean he wants you,” Pansy said. 

“I think everyone knows he wants me,” Draco pointed out. His colleagues even warmed up a smidge. Someone had asked his opinion on their patient and borrowed a pen without checking it was cursed. Draco was well on the way to winning St Mungo’s Miss Congeniality contest.

“Your weird sexual tension is not a relationship," Pansy pointed out. "He might take you to bed on that basis, but I know you want more. You’re willing to get hurt either way over him?" 

Draco should have given her a lump of coal for Christmas instead of brewing her face serums. 

"We all take what we can get," Draco responded. Pansy glared. 

"It's late. If you die, I hope they bury you together so I can piss on both of your graves at once,” Pansy said. 

She got up and stood in his fireplace with a pinch of floo powder from the vase on the sill. 

“Happy New Year to you too, dearest,” Draco said. He blew her a kiss. She scowled and made a rude hand gesture.

“Parkinson Place.” Pansy whirled out of view in a rush of green flames. 

She sent him her usual New Year's gift basket because if you could count on Pansy for anything, it was manners. 

It was only a few days later when he heard a faint knocking at the front door of the Manor in the middle of night. If he hadn’t been up to study, Draco was not sure he would have heard it at all. 

“Purple curse. No hospital,” Harry said to him.

Harry was clutching his chest and he wiped at a trickle of blood from his nostril.

Then he crumpled in the entryway, with Draco only managing to stop Harry from cracking his head open on the marble front steps. Harry was entirely dead weight and Draco set him down gently before bringing out his wand to float Harry’s unconscious body to the study. He cleared the main table, sending books and papers spilling to the floor. He took deep shuddering breaths to steady his hands. Draco was terrified but he needed to be able to think properly. 

He ran a simple diagnostic test. Nothing. Harry’s pulse was thready and weak against his fingertips. He was breathing shallowly. No obstructions in his airway. 

“Ennervate,” Draco said. 

Harry didn’t even stir. Draco carefully pried his eyelids open but his pupils did not react to a lit wand tip. Not good. Draco tried one of the more thorough diagnostic spells. He could see the spell damage represented in thin gold thread, crisscrossing across Harry’s torso. But what kind of spell damage? Draco reached for it gently with his wand and it burned so fiercely up his arm he almost vomited. Something malevolent. He should have assumed, but Harry’s worsening state distracted him. 

The noise summoned Narcissa Malfoy, and she appeared in the study's doorway, pale blue silk robe drawn tight across her body. 

“Please fetch the three vials on the middle shelf of the storeroom. Also, the paperweight on Father’s desk.”

She looked on horrified as Draco used a nearby letter opener to cut open Harry’s top from the hem to neckline. He couldn’t feel, he had to think. The shirt was black and made of cheap muggle polyester blend. Maybe he had been undercover? It occurred to Draco that despite frequent consultation he was not sure what Harry did day to day. The scars everywhere he could see underscored that point. 

“Is that Harry Potter?” she asked. 

“Mother,” he warned. 

She swept away and returned quickly with three vials and a glass marble about the size of his fist. He swallowed a clarity serum and tilted Harry’s head back to drizzle a Stability Drought slowly down his throat. It wasn’t hospital-grade, but it would do. Draco could feel Harry’s heartbeat grow stronger underneath his fingertips and a brief wave of relief washed over him. He could see the spell damage in his mind’s eye.

“You should look away,” Draco told his mother. 

“What are you doing?” She asked, an undercurrent of worry in her voice. 

He cast again and the golden tangle was getting denser and more knotted. This Dark curse, whatever it was, would shred Harry from the inside out if he wasn’t careful. Draco took the third vial of a Purging Potion, flicked off the stopper with his left thumb and poured it straight onto Harry’s chest where it glowed faintly silver. If Head Healer Cummins could see him right now, she would have murdered him on the spot for this improvisation. Draco had to be steady. His mother was still watching.

“Will you help?” he asked. She came over and held Harry’s shoulders as instructed. 

“Draco, you should call one of your colleagues,” she said. But she held Harry securely to the table. Draco looked at his mother directly. Harry had asked him not to call St Mungo's. 

“Healer’s oath. He came to me for help,” he told her with a calm he did not feel. 

Draco reached with his magic as they taught him, gathered the edges of the curse together and picked it up. Harry’s body surged upward, but his mum kept Harry on the table. Draco fed the curse into the paperweight bit by bit which gradually turned pitch black and smoky. He cast again to be sure the last tendrils of the magic were gone, then once more to start the healing process. Draco grabbed the edge of the table and sat, suddenly overcome.

“Water,” he croaked. She summoned a glass and filled it from her wand tip. It tasted so cool and crisp he finished it, then drank another.

“You could have killed yourself handling a dark curse of unknown provenance. Are you out of your mind?” his mother said.

Instead of answering, he leaned on her heavily. It didn’t matter. Harry would be okay. Narcissa brushed the hair from his temple softly. When Draco could stand again, she levitated Harry to Draco’s room. Draco set up a web of monitoring spells, guaranteed to wake him if Harry so much as sneezed, and sat on the settee. He would only close his eyes for a moment. 

Draco awoke all at once with the sun shining in his face and Harry sitting up in his bed, tattered ends of his shirt doing nothing to cover his bare chest. Harry was wide awake and appeared to be almost back to his normal colouring. Harry had disabled all the alarm spells somehow. 

“Thank you,” Harry said. Draco thought about how Harry had looked barely breathing on his study table. 

“You’re welcome,” Draco said evenly. He summoned the orb, even though he could feel the strain on his magic, like a muscle he had overexerted. 

“That’s the curse, preserved for evidence. What are you allowed to tell me?” Draco asked. 

“It was work-related,” Harry said. To his credit, he looked vaguely chagrined by his own evasiveness, though it was habitual. 

“I should hope death doesn’t chase you in your personal life anymore than it already has,” Draco said dryly. “Tell me why you came here.”

“I trusted you. I knew you would know what to do,” Harry said simply. 

Aurors had safe houses and healers of their own. Draco didn’t see that advanced a Dark curse often in his practice, and he had been improvising based on what he’d read and what he knew from before. He should have stabilized him and sent him to the hospital anyway. Draco was going to be a general practitioner not a curse breaker. 

“What happened?” Draco insisted. Harry sighed. 

“I was monitoring a group that seems to have plans to carry out an attack in Glasgow. Somehow they knew they were being watched from a distance and five of their members ambushed me near their headquarters.”

“Why were you alone?” Draco asked. 

“I have to be. Someone is leaking information about our investigations. There have been a couple close calls lately, but this proves they know exactly where I was. Kingsley thinks it’s someone who has access to the Minister’s confidential briefings.”

“So, you can’t trust anyone,” Draco said. He remembered what that felt like.

“The team, of course. And there is one other person,” Harry said. Harry winked at him. The audacity of this man who had nearly died at his door to  _ wink _ at him less than ten hours later. Being that handsome was a danger to Draco's good sense and apparently Harry's health. 

"You're not nearly as entertaining as you think you are." Draco said, getting up to leave. "I'll go fetch you some food. If you disable my monitoring spells again, I'll confiscate your wand." 

An empty threat as he wasn't certain Harry even needed a wand. 

"Yes, Doctor Malfoy," Harry said. His tone was almost flirty and Draco had to escape before he did something ridiculous. He remembered that kiss in the alleyway in Hogsmeade too well. 

Draco left his mother to watch him when he had to be at the hospital, but otherwise spent too much time sitting at his bedside. Like most Aurors, Harry was a horrible patient. 

“This tastes awful,” Harry said, sipping a potion that Draco had woken up every two hours to stir. 

“Don’t take it then and destabilize your own magic core,” Draco fired back. 

Not something he would normally say to a patient but watching Harry be unwell got under his skin. He noticed a wince as Harry twisted his torso to stretch. There had been some internal bleeding. Draco scanned him with his wand again. Harry was healing nicely, he needed some pain management. 

“How much pain are you in?” Draco asked. “One to ten.”

“Three,” Harry said, clearly lying through his teeth. Draco scanned the piece of parchment he’d made into a makeshift chart. 

“When were you going to tell me you’re resistant to most pain potions?” Draco said. Harry shrugged. 

“I didn’t want to make trouble for you,” Harry said. 

“Shouldn’t you have thought of that before you came here?” Draco said. He began to walk away from Harry’s sheepish expression. 

“Wait. Can you do me a favour?” Harry asked. 

“What is it?” 

“Can you tell Andromeda that I won’t be able to come this week to see Teddy?”

Ah, his cousin he had never met and the aunt who hated his whole family. Draco could have insisted on giving his owl to Harry. But Harry was incapacitated. Draco sat in his solar and penned a note to Aunt Andromeda being as vague as possible about the circumstances. He sealed it with his magic in case it was intercepted so it could only be opened by a blood relative. 

Draco gave his owl Ariadne an extra treat before sending her on, in case Andromeda decided to wring her neck on sight. 

_ Draco,  _

_ I feel compelled to try to get you to tell me more about Harry’s condition as your aunt. But we’ve not corresponded as such, so I have no right. I expect it’s related to Auror business and as a Healer you’re not allowed to. Take care of him. Send him love from Teddy. Tell your mother you wrote me. Don’t hide it.  _

Draco didn’t know what to make of that, but when he told his mother, she took off with Ariadne and didn’t return for the rest of the day. 

Draco cooked for Harry himself. He made generous portions and often ate what was left out of the pot before serving him. Harry Potter was not going to die in his house under suspicious circumstances.

“I want to go for a walk,” Harry said, the fifth day. 

“And people in hell want ice water. You’re supposed to be on complete bed rest,” Draco said.

Harry gave him a slow, sleepy smile. His eyes were such a striking shade of green.

“You picked up a lot of Muggle phrases, didn’t you?” Harry said. Draco felt himself blushing. 

In the end Harry refused to stay in one place and walked the grounds several times a day at a slow clip. Draco knew because he watched him through the window when he was home. Narcissa caught Draco at it one day as Harry stubbornly disappeared into the horizon. 

“I see,” she said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Draco asked her. But she swept away without another word. In the end, Harry was there for a week but refused any longer. 

“Thank you again for everything, Draco,” Harry said.

"Straining yourself too soon can mean magic backlash. Be careful," Draco said. He wanted to tell Harry to stay with him, but it wasn’t possible. 

"I understand," Harry said. "You're a good man." 

Draco snorted. "I'm nothing of the sort." 

Harry stepped forward and cradled the back of Draco’s neck. And Harry kissed him. Once. Deeply and thoroughly. Draco barely had the chance to kiss him back when Harry pulled away. Harry dropped his hands to his sides and took a step away. Draco’s heart fluttered softly in his chest.

“You’re right. You’re extraordinary,” Harry said.


	12. xii. Things Fall Apart

_January 12, 2006_

Harry made a full report to Kingsley to follow up with the brief messages he had sent by Patronus. He expected to be reprimanded sharply. In the very least, he had held on to evidence for too long and had stunned five men without cleaning up after himself or alerting the department. But Kingsley only listened without asking any questions.

“Give the orb to Athena,” Kingsley said finally. Harry turned to go find her at her workstation.

"Do you know how I met Patience, Harry?" Kingsley said, as Harry reached the door of the master bedroom. 

Harry had never thought to wonder how he met his wife. Harry vaguely recalled she had gone to uni in Spain before coming to England for her Potions Mastery. 

"No," Harry said. 

"I recruited her as a consultant with the Ministry." 

Really, how was Harry supposed to respond to that less than twenty-four hours after he had kissed Draco? It was probably fifty kinds of ethical misconduct, and Draco wasn’t even a suspect. Harry didn’t know whether he could find it comforting that Kingsley was Head Auror and had done the same thing. Not that it would stop him. 

“Harry!” Penny threw herself at him. It was less a hug than that she patted all of his limbs within reach as if assuring herself they were all there. Her blue eyes brimmed with tears. 

“I’m alright, Penny.” Harry patted her on the back awkwardly. 

Zacharias gave him a quiet nod from his workstation. It figured Harry would have to be literally attacked on the job before Smith would give him an ounce of respect. Harry nodded back. 

“I can catch you up on suspects, Potter, ” Athena said. “Come round.”

Athena had actually managed to narrow down suspects to particular cells for the first time all investigation. They had a few familiar names as Harry looked at the chart she had pinned up on the living room wall. The chart was dazzling in black ink on parchment. Harry tapped a few sections with his wand and they zoomed in and out, rearranged to centre the name tapped. 

Harry tapped twice and suddenly it was colour-coded: green for cashflow, yellow for research, red for operations, blue for trading. 

Harry noted Marcus Flint had a lot of accounts the Revenue Service had traced illicit money with a double line linked to Gregory Goyle. They were evidently funding most of these ventures, circled in blue and green. 

“Lavender Brown? Really?” Harry hadn’t heard about her in a while. She spat at Draco that day in Diagon Alley. But he assumed like everyone else she had moved on with her life and hated Death Eaters which was understandable. Why would she work with them?

“She’s not very happy about the werewolf rights legislation. She was sending threats to the Minister a couple years ago. We had to threaten to charge her before she stopped. She’s been running with an interesting crowd since,” Zacharias said. 

It was a nasty shock to see Marietta Edgecombe circled in yellow.

“Doesn’t Edgecombe work for the Minister?” Harry said. 

“She’s his Senior Policy Advisor on Justice and Security. We’re guessing that’s where the leak came from,” Athena explained. Well, he knew she’d hated Hermione Granger, but wasn’t joining a terrorist group a bit much?

“But what’s this?” Harry asked, tapping a blank spot in the middle. Everything converged on a box that had a large question mark inked in the centre. 

“We don’t know. It’s pretty clear that they are all answering to a central purpose,” Zacharias said. 

“We know how they recruit, how they fund their activities, and even their cover stories. But we still don’t know why,” Penny added. 

“Clearly they are experimenting with Dark objects and it’s something to do with muggleborns. Clearly they are escalating if they’ve attacked you outright. But to what end no one can figure out,” Athena said. 

Harry wanted to kick a table. They were somewhere and nowhere all at once. 

“I’m going to read the reports from last week,” Harry said.

_January 14, 2006_

“I’m not a baby,” Teddy said. He very much looked like one to Harry, but he refrained from saying so. He was tall for his age and tried to eat Andromeda out of house and home, but Harry could lift him one-handed which was probably his best measure for a child being big.

“You’re nine,” Harry said instead. 

“That’s why you should buy me a full-size broom,” Teddy said. 

Andromeda was not around to hear this plea, strategically, Harry thought. Teddy would deliberately shift to look more like him during these conversations, which he found very confusing emotionally. A black haired, golden skinned, green eyed boy looked back at him. Teddy didn’t have his nose or mouth right, but an impression was enough. 

“I will buy you a broom when you get to Hogwarts, if you keep your grades up until then,” Harry said.

“Why? It doesn’t matter! I don’t know why Gran makes me go to school with stupid muggles anyway. They’re useless and they can’t do magic,” Teddy said. 

“Edward...” Harry warned. He didn’t mean to use the Auror voice, but Teddy did look a little shamefaced. 

“Why would you say that?” Harry asked. “I didn’t teach you to say things like that.”

“Some of the muggles at school call me names,” Teddy admitted. He looked more like himself now and less of a miniature Harry with his customary blue. He wasn’t old enough to always be in full control of his abilities when he was emotional. 

“Then we’ll deal with it. But I don’t want to hear that kind of talk again,” Harry said. 

“I didn’t mean it,” Teddy said. “They keep calling me...” 

“What are they calling you?” Harry said. He knew better than most how cruel children could be when they sensed something different. But Teddy shook his head.

“It’s okay. You can tell me whatever they are calling you, and you won’t get in trouble for bad words,” Harry reassured him. 

“They said I’m like you,” Teddy said, barely above a whisper. Harry was confused, what about him would strange muggle children know? Then it hit him. 

“I told Natalie my godfather couldn’t visit because you were at your boyfriend’s place feeling sick according to Gran. And Nat told the whole class and she won’t speak to me.”

Well, as far as explaining it to a nine-year old, he supposed that was the least complicated way.

“Listen to me, Teddy. Your classmates are being silly. We’ll talk to the school and it will stop, and you will make new friends,” Harry said. 

“But if you were gay or bisexual or trans or anything at all, Gran and I would still love you the same,” Harry said softly. That was a conversation they would have to keep having, so he left it there. Teddy gave him a hug, the kind that came rarer now he was getting a bit older. 

“Gran also said that your boyfriend is my cousin.” Harry nodded, anticipating some further difficult questions about his sexuality, the War, the family rift that was only just mending or vaguely invasive ones about their relationship. Teddy had recently been fond of asking shocking questions and then laughing at their expressions. 

“Does that mean he might buy me a broom?” Teddy asked hopefully.

_January 15, 2006_

Harry desperately wished he had an excuse. After his first owl checked that Draco was well, he didn’t know how to respond to Draco’s last message. Gideon nipped him for his trouble. 

_Harry, I’m well. Busy week, almost at qualifying exams. Any issues healing? Do you need me? - D_

Harry actually felt pretty decent, thanks to Draco’s work. There was not so much as a residual soreness. He had been injured like this on operation before and felt it for months. He hadn’t even really considered up until this moment that he could have possibly got them both in a lot of trouble if he had led his attackers to Draco’s home or didn’t wake once he passed out. He’d really put a lot of faith in Draco.

Harry’s floo activated and Harry was met with Draco. He was wearing Muggle clothes which Harry hadn’t realized Draco wore at all. He was very casual in some sort of jeans and a grey henley with the sleeves rolled up and those glasses again. He had always assumed that Draco kept the Mark hidden as it would have faded, but he had covered it with a solid band of black. 

“Hello,” Draco said, though Harry should have greeted him first. 

“Hi,” Harry said. His mouth went dry. 

“Are you well? Any symptoms?” Draco said. His wand was already out, although he paused as if waiting for permission. 

“No, nothing. I feel fine,” Harry said. Draco’s intense expression knocked whatever air Harry had managed to keep in his lungs. 

“Can I check?” Harry nodded and let him scan. 

Draco put his wand away and held up his hands. “It would be good to do a physical examination too, if I may be permitted?” 

Harry nodded again and raised his shirt. Draco pressed firmly on his abdomen and torso with the tips of his fingers. The warmth of his hands made him shiver but it was all very professional to his vague disappointment.

Harry noticed that Draco stuck his tongue out slightly when he was concentrating and it made it harder to think. 

“Everything seems fine,” Draco said. Harry dropped his shirt but didn’t miss the way Draco watched him do it, with a slow heat. 

“Now I know why you’re not supposed to treat people you know,” Draco admitted. Draco was biting the corner of his lip hard. Harry wasn’t sure he’d ever been so aware of what someone’s mouth was doing. 

“Because it’s against the rules?” Harry ventured. 

“It’s allowed in an emergency. It just makes my feelings very...confusing,” Draco said, half to himself. Draco took off the glasses and dropped them on the table. He rubbed his temples, then walked towards the living room. Harry followed, as if they were not in his house. 

“Headache?” Harry asked. 

“No. Not a headache.” 

Then Harry realized that expression was Draco making a decision. 

Their previous kiss was practically a warm, polite expression of interest. Draco was not interested in that. Draco walked them backwards, took off Harry’s glasses, pressed Harry into his sofa and kept going until they were lined up hip to hip. _Then_ Draco kissed him.

Harry finally realized he had missed out by not waiting for Draco to kiss him. 

It was like the whole universe righted itself at once. Draco’s kisses were indulgent and searching. His mouth tasted tart and sweet like he had been eating lemon drops seconds before. His hair was silky underneath his palm. Harry realized he could easily flip Draco, as he had the strength advantage if not the height advantage. But he liked being pinned beneath Draco’s weight, at his mercy, as Draco kissed him over and over. 

Clearly, they needed little permission to ignite this _thing_ between them.

When Draco finally moved away, Harry pulled him down for one more kiss before letting him stumble backwards. 

“I’d been thinking about doing that,” Draco admitted. 

“You can do it again,” Harry said. Harry’s head was not clear enough for flirting. He wanted to continue. “I want you to.” In case there were lingering questions about Harry’s intentions. 

“I know but I do have to go back home to study,” Draco admitted. He looked as put out as Harry felt. 

“You could study here,” Harry responded. Draco laughed at his attempt to make him stay, but not unkindly. 

“I should leave,” Draco said. They walked slowly back towards the kitchen. Then it occurred to Harry that he was missing some key information. 

“Why did you kiss me?” Harry asked. What he wanted to ask was: will this happen again? Would you like it to happen again? Are we seeing each other?

“Promise you won’t die on this ridiculous Task Force and you’ll find out,” Draco said. 

The wards must have accepted him, because with a loud crack, Draco apparated mid-stride.


	13. xiii. Vanity Fair

_March 22, 2006_

When Draco saw Greg a second time after their initial meeting the day after he was released, he realized he had not been sufficiently scared of him the first time. Greg was wearing a black trench coat over black robes and filled his doorway, blocking out the meagre sunlight. There was something about the set of his shoulders and the blankness of his expression he’d seen before. 

There must have been some sort of magical geas, because Pansy even now refused to talk about Greg in specifics, and she gossiped about everyone. She would just say that Greg had changed and cast around for any other topic. 

So he knew Gregory Goyle was not one of the people who had taken the Fall as a reason to change his views. 

“Malfoy.”

“Goyle. You should have owled. I was about headed to the hospital,” Draco lied. 

“You’re not scheduled today,” Greg said simply. How the fuck did Greg know his schedule? 

“I forgot my mug in the break room,” Draco said. Greg entered his house anyway and looked around. Fuck, he knew he should have got around to rekeying the wards.

“You can get it some other time,” Greg said. “Where’s the parlour gone?”

“I redecorated. Let’s go to the solar,” Draco lied again. Greg was looking at a cracked sconce. Draco wasn’t embarrassed, so much as it highlighted what the War had done to him visually. It was no less that he deserved, but sometimes he felt like that light.

Draco really did not feel like he had the upper hand even in his own home with Greg here. 

“I hear you’ve been hanging around Harry Potter. You’ve changed, Draco.” The faux concern in Greg’s voice was menacing. Draco decided the best play was not to speak unless asked a direct question as they sat. Draco did not offer him tea or coffee or petit-fours. He was not welcome.

“The funny thing is that a lot of people are acting like the world is changed but it really hasn’t. Minister Steel can tell us that we are all reconciled, and filthy beasts are just as good as wizards, and being a mudblood doesn’t matter. But I know that’s not true, and you used to as well,” Greg said calmly. 

His expression was placid. No light of zealotry had been lit recently. This was simply who Greg had chosen to become, Draco realized. 

“What do you want from me, Greg?” Draco said. He was scared, yes, but he was also running out of the little patience he had. They might have once been friends, but he didn't want to listen to this speech. It was no doubt connected to what Harry was doing, but he was not an Auror and he didn’t know how to question anyone. If Greg had any hint he had been involved in their operation, he would probably be dead. 

“When I came here last time I wanted your support. Unwisely, you declined. Do what you want, Malfoy. Fuck Harry Potter in the streets like a whore. Spend your time with a pair of blood traitors. Pretend you live in this new world. I wanted to remind you that you live in the old one. You’ll know soon enough that all those changes they made were optional,” Greg said. Draco set aside the insults. Something about the way he spoke doused Draco’s spine in ice water. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Draco said, standing up from his chair. Greg stood too. Draco belatedly realized that Greg was taller than him and had exercised in the intervening years with weights. 

“Look at you,” Greg said disgustedly. Draco was confused about what had prompted that reaction when he realized he had rolled his sleeves up and the thick black band tattooed on his forearm was visible. He had covered it when he couldn’t have it removed. He could feel the outline when he brushed his hand over it, but otherwise it was a smooth solid black when viewed. 

“You covered it. Who are you? You would have died for him once!” Greg shouted. His composure had cracked. For all that they were adults, they had known each other as children. And that meant it was harder to pretend.

“And I nearly did!” Draco roared back. “So did you. That’s nothing to be proud of!”

“You’re a disgrace. You should have died in that fire instead of Vince,” Greg said. 

That hurt because Draco had thought that too, especially during that month in Azkaban. But the universe said he was here and his dear friend was gone and the world had changed so much. They could live their lives in a way that didn’t mean clinging to the past so desperately. Vince might have changed too. They had been barely eighteen. Why couldn’t Greg see that? How could Greg be a complete stranger to him in ten years? 

“Maybe I should have. Get. Out.” 

He went for his wand but Greg was faster. Greg punched Draco in the face so hard he felt a sickening crack and fell back. Within his own walls, if Greg tried to curse him the rebuilt wards would have rebounded it. Blood poured from his nose. Draco rolled onto his knees to make sure he wouldn’t choke on it and fumbled for his wand. Greg appeared to absorb his three stunners in a row. Draco had never seen anything like it. 

“Pathetic. Weak,” Greg spat.   
  
And he left Draco there on the floor.

Draco found a broken nose was really quite a lot more blood than anyone wanted outside their body for a minor injury. He pinched the bridge of his nose to try to get something to clot. 

This was not the first time he had lain on the floor of the solar. During Christmas break of the War, he had confessed to his father that he wanted to run away. His father had struck him, once and hard. While plenty of pureblood families believed in corporal punishment, his parents had never raised a hand to him. He was doted on as a child. Draco had sobbed on the floor of the solar and his father had cried too. The worst parts of the War were moments like that, when nothing could be relied on except misery.

This was an inconvenient time for that memory. 

His floo activated. 

“Panse,” he called. 

“Draco?” Harry called back.

Of course floos worked both ways, but when did Harry ever come looking for him in the Manor? Lady of the fucking Lake, his face hurt. He would never be annoyed with anyone who came into A&E complaining about something being broken ever again. He could taste the coppery brightness of his own blood down the back of his throat. 

Harry knelt beside him. 

“Are you okay?” Harry asked. Harry was worried. “There’s so much blood. Who did this to you?”

Draco did not want to relive that conversation. 

“I need you to get me a mirror,” Draco said. 

Harry got up and scrambled around, spreading the splotches of blood around. Unsanitary. He got a glimpse of the stains all over Harry’s knees and forearm. 

“The room across from this one,” Draco added. Harry got up and ran there and back, bringing a circular framed mirror that hung over the chimney in that room. Harry was careful not to slip. Draco could feel as his eyes started to swell shut. 

“The blood,” Draco said. “Can you?”

“Of course.” Harry brought out his wand and the blood vanished from the floor and their clothes. Surely Harry saw enough blood in his own line of work, why did he look so worried?

“Let me,” And Harry leaned in and cleaned it from Draco’s face too, with a much softer spell.

Before he couldn’t see at all, Draco pointed his wand at himself and whispered a spell. 

“Fuck, that hurts,” Draco complained.The swelling went down immediately, but the feeling of his nose cartilage moving around was horrifying. This was not a good time, but he should probably apologize to Harry for doing this to him someday. 

“I could have done that for you! I have first aid training,” Harry said. Draco felt the urge to derail into a conversation about the healing he had to undo when someone had botched the job at home or work. 

“Considering I’ve done that at least a hundred times now, I respectfully decline,” Draco said. 

“What happened?” Harry asked again. Clearly he wasn’t going to relent.

“Gregory Goyle came to visit. We had a slight political disagreement,” Draco said. 

Draco was familiar with that face. The “I have secrets I can’t share because of my job” face Harry was sporting. He’d always figured Greg was a suspect but it was confirmed. 

“So he broke your nose?” Harry said. One would think Harry was completely unfamiliar with the concept of violence. 

“I’m very charming but he didn’t find me persuasive,” Draco said. “Help me up.”

Harry gave Draco a hand up. Amazing what not lying on a hardwood floor and bleeding could do for your mood. Draco led Harry to his bedroom, under markedly different circumstances than he might have hoped. 

“There was something strange about Greg’s visit though. He made it sound like he was planning something big,” Draco said.

He flopped onto his bed and Harry followed, sitting by his feet. Harry made a go-on gesture. 

“Well, he implied that the Post-War changes were all temporary and soon it would go back the way it was with....” here he made a gesture. With Pansy and Theo, Draco used _him_. You-Know-Who sounded foolish. He never wanted to call him the Dark Lord again, but he wasn’t about to call him Voldemort either.

“But it didn’t sound like nonsense. I mean, he’s changed but Greg was never...Greg was a pretty literal thinker when I knew him. He doesn’t have flights of fancy. If he says it, he believes it. And he didn’t strike me as delusional.” 

Harry made a soft listening noise. 

“Also, I hit him with a stunner and it...didn’t hit him.” Draco said. “I didn’t miss. It was like he absorbed it.” Harry sat up. Hitting someone with three stunners was a little more than reasonable force, so he was going to decline to admit that to an officer of the law. 

“Absorbed a stunner? Like a troll or something?” Harry asked. 

“No, if you stun a troll it bounces off their hide,” Draco said. “On that thought, I’ve never seen any protective spells that absorb spells. They mostly reflect them. There’s too many spells to cover otherwise.”

“He could have some sort of spell that only absorbs stunners,” Harry reasoned. 

“Yes,” Draco agreed. But they both didn’t seem to be satisfied with this explanation after all the strangeness and magical anomalies they had seen. 

Then Harry stood up suddenly. 

“You’re brilliant. I—I can’t say anything but you’re brilliant,” Harry kissed him once excitedly and ran downstairs without him. Draco started after him when he bumped into his mother. 

“Was that Harry Potter coming from your bedroom?” Narcissa said, raising an eyebrow. 

“Mother...” Draco said. 

“He seems to know his way to the floo. This isn’t a hotel, Draco. He’s welcome to come as a guest and stay with you. He should eat,” she continued. 

"It was a visit," Draco insisted. 

"Ah yes, I remember doing quite a few visits before my betrothal. Is that what the kids are calling it?" 

"Mum! I’m twenty-six.” 

So maybe he was in training, and he was behind all his peers as far as a career. Most pureblood children didn’t even move out until marriage. 

“I'm not stopping you. I'm very open-minded. Don't hide it,” she said primly. 

“I—can we never speak about this again?” Draco said. 

“We won’t...if you’re not sneaking Harry Potter out of your bedroom like a mistress in a brothel,” his mother said. Draco groaned. Harry had definitely left by now.


	14. xiv. Glass Menagerie

_March 22, 2006_

“Experimenting?” Kingsley said. He didn’t sound as skeptical as Harry would have thought as they gathered in the living room of the safehouse facing Athena’s chart. 

“We thought it only had to do with muggleborns and Dark objects. But it doesn’t make sense because that’s not all they are doing,” Harry exclaimed. 

He pointed at the black box in the middle of the parchment with his wand and the following appeared:

_Experiments on muggleborns with Dark objects_

_Experiments on Dark objects to boost their power_

_Experiments on Dark objects to absorb their power_

Athena was the first to grasp it. Harry could practically see her mind whirring with possibilities. 

“You think that they were trying to find a way to take and receive wizard magic with Dark objects,” Athena said. Penny and Zacharias were pale as death. Kingsley looked very, very unhappy. 

“If they’ve done this, they could strip magic from people. They could make themselves impervious to magic like Draco saw,” Kingsley said.

“Do they have the power to do that already?” Penny asked sharply. 

“Stripping magic? Certainly. The power transfer thing would be much harder, I think,” Harry said.

“Your opinion, Meadowes?” Zacharias managed. 

Athena shook her head hard. 

“I don’t like admitting it but it’s very possible. It makes more sense if these attacks were ways of testing capabilities. They aren’t hurting people because they don’t need to. They can make anyone a squib using powerful objects and if the things we’ve found are discarded...” Athena trailed off.

“The new object we found means they could make new Dark objects with those accumulated magics,” Zacharias said. 

“There’s no reason it would be limited to wizards either,” Kingsley said softly. “We all have a magical core.” 

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Penny said, stumbling away from the living room. She ran the tap but they all heard her dry-heaving anyway. 

Harry felt distinctly unwell himself, but he was suddenly glad he’d kept up seeing Healer Blishwick. All the implications hit him and he narrowed his focus to the exact colour of the living room flooring for five breaths before the feeling returned to his hands. 

"The Minister won't like the sound of this at all," Kingsley said darkly. 

With this information, they issued warrants for a blitz of more low-level operatives to try to confirm what they’ve guessed. Most wouldn’t speak, but a few key people cracked and made a deal to stop themselves from going to Azkaban for decades. 

“I’m not worried about telling you because you can’t stop ‘em,” a suspect said. “The reckoning is coming.” She laughed and laughed and all the hairs on the back of Harry’s neck stood up. 

_March 25, 2006_

Draco woke Harry in the middle of the night with a shake on the shoulder. Harry started for his wand before flexing his hand and putting it back under the blanket. They both noticed. 

"I have to go to the clinic in the morning and I came from a shift." And then he kissed Harry so thoroughly he was certain that he was not dreaming and Draco was in fact, standing before him. Harry broke his gaze by taking a quick sip of water from his night stand. 

"This is getting out of control," Draco said. "I want you."

"Want me for...?" 

Draco cut him off with a kiss which was okay because Harry didn't know where his sentence was going. He wanted anything Draco had to offer even if Draco was only here to kiss him until he couldn't see straight. He just wanted.

Harry wasn't sure whether he had pulled Draco down or not. Either way, Draco was straddling him, wearing most of his work attire and offering little nips along Harry's collarbone. Harry had been sleeping in nothing more than shorts so the imbalance threw him off a little. 

"Off, " he murmured. His magic must have gone a little bit haywire, because everything but Draco's boxers disappeared. 

"Did you accidentally vanish my work robes? I pay for those," Draco complained. Harry was pleased that he sounded short of breath too. 

Draco was stretched above him lit by the moonlight from Harry's window. He was even paler than Harry had imagined. And he had in great detail. Now he knew exactly how he looked, from the dip of his hip, to a sprinkling of freckles and light blond hair on his chest and exactly what few childhood scars Draco had left after having erased most of the rest of the war from his body. The black solid band wrapped around his left forearm in contrast. 

"I'll buy you three more, " Harry promised. His voice was still sleepy, lending a rasp to it. Harry reversed their positions being careful to give Draco a way to wiggle out. Harry didn’t want him to panic. Experimentally Harry pressed into him with his hips and Draco made such a filthy needy sound that he could have been undone right then and there. 

"We can't be up all night," Draco tried to sound composed and failed. 

"You're right," Harry crawled down his body without ceremony, pulled down his boxers and went to work figuring out exactly how to take him apart with his mouth. Harry gave one tentative lick from base to tip. Draco didn't react until he got near the tip then he groaned. Okay, so Draco liked that. Harry returned, applying a bit more suction in earnest. 

Draco bit down on the back of his own knuckle, eyes fluttering shut. 

Harry was good at this part at least. He could concentrate without having to look Draco directly in the eye. Draco's left hand fisted in his hair and he tugged hard before he came. Harry loved that little sharp pain. It seemed to focus the hazy arousal as he swallowed. 

"Sorry. I should have warned you before—" Draco began. 

Harry cut him off with another searing filthy kiss. Draco seemed not to mind tasting himself on Harry. Harry had mostly forgotten about his own needs until Draco found his way to his erection. He moaned almost embarrassingly loud in the small space. Draco shushed him gently until a few short pulls later, he came all over Draco's belly button, though he hardly seemed to mind. Harry collapsed next to him, vanishing the mess he'd made. 

"Fuck," Draco said. 

"Fuck," Harry agreed. 

"I have to be at the hospital at 7 and it's 4," Draco said, casting a quick alarm spell.

“You’re the one who decided to come here in the middle of the night between a double shift for sex,” Harry pointed out. Draco pressed a kiss to his chest. 

“Shut up, I’m trying to sleep,” Draco responded. 

_April 1, 2006_

Harry didn’t expect anyone to be around when he came by early to finish reports. The master bedroom was closed and he could hear Athena and Kingsley arguing. Not like how everyone argued with one another, but it was startling and loud. It seemed personal. Harry was trying to figure out how to make himself known. 

“Just because you knew Dorcas doesn’t mean you know me!” Athena shouted.

The name finally clicked for Harry. Dorcas Meadowes was an Auror who had died in the first Wizarding War. She had been an Order member. There was a photo somewhere of her smiling and waving in Harry’s albums. Athena must be related to her somehow. 

“Of course I don’t know you! Every time I try to get to know you, you push me away!” Kingsley shouted back. Harry had never heard that tone from him. He sounded like he was pleading. Why would he be pleading about anything?

“There’s nothing to know! Just because she was your partner doesn’t mean that we’re anything to each other. I never met her! I never wanted to meet you! I’m not an Auror!” Athena was yelling. Then a long silence.

“Why did you agree to join this operation, then?” Harry had to strain to hear Kingsley’s words. 

“Good point. Well, consider this my fucking resignation.” 

Athena stomped out of headquarters barely acknowledging Harry. Half out of curiosity and half fear, he knocked on the door and pushed it open. 

“Kingsley?” Harry said.

Kingsley had put his hand over his eyes and was breathing hard. Harry sat in the chair in front of him.

“Give me a minute.” When more like five minutes had passed, he opened his eyes. 

“How much of that did you hear?” Kingsley asked.

“Most of it,” Harry admitted. “I didn’t understand why though.”

“Sometimes I wish I still smoked,” Kingsley muttered. He took a piece of gum, offered one to Harry and gazed out the window which was reflective with the spell that kept their safehouse hidden. 

“Her aunt Dorcas was my first partner,” Kingsley explained. “She was my best friend. When she died, I went to pieces.” 

“Were you involved?” Harry asked quietly. 

“Maybe if we had both survived the first War but...it was never like that. We were too young. She was like family,” Kingsley said. 

Harry knew what that was like. He had other friends but Hermione and Ron had become his family. 

“Her sister Ruth also lost her husband. I tried to help. She shut me out because I reminded her too much of Dorcas,” Kingsley said. Harry had never seen Kingsley look so defeated. 

“You knew her as a kid then,” Harry asked. 

“Sure. But she started to notice her mum’s reaction and started avoiding me too. I gave her space. Wrote her and got no replies. After she was thirteen I didn’t see her again until career day at Hogwarts. Her professors recommended her in sixth year for Auror training. She refused.”

It felt weird that Harry might have any insight but he thought he recognized that pressure. 

“It would have been a lot to live up to, even if you didn’t ask her to,” Harry said softly. 

"Athena has always thought I’m looking for a substitute for Dorcas. No one in the world could be Dorcas. Athena’s brilliant in her own right. I don’t know why I keep trying.” Kingsley sighed heavily. 

“Maybe she likes being an Unspeakable?” Kingsley snorted. 

“Actually, I’ve spoken to her supervisor and the Department Head.” Here, at least, Kingsley had the modesty to look a little guilty over using his privilege that way. 

“She hates it. She hates me more because I make her mum sad,” Kingsley said.

“But she joined the Task Force. ” Harry asked. 

“I imagine it was in spite of me. But she did join,” Kingsley agreed.

“Do you think she’ll return?” Harry asked. 

“If she actually takes after Dorcas, it’ll be a cold day in hell first,” Kingsley said. He laughed a little but it was tinged with sadness. 

“So what will we do?” Harry asked. 

“The only thing we ever do, Harry. We carry on, best we can,” Kingsley said.


	15. xv. A Swiftly Tilting Planet

_April 10, 2006_

“Can’t the prosecutors do this part?” Draco asked after explaining another spell proof so Harry could do it in the kitchen of Grimmauld. Harry wasn’t good at them, but he would redo it until it was correct even if each one took him an hour. Draco might have given up if it was that difficult, but Harry refused to let him do them in case it compromised the investigation. 

“They should but they won’t. And I won’t have a single one of these bastards off the hook because they said the investigation wasn’t thorough,” Harry said. 

Harry’s sheer stubbornness could be attractive even if he didn’t understand it. 

“So much so that you’re having me teach you basic arithmancy,” Draco said. It wasn’t a question. “Wasn’t there someone else who did this before?”

Like all questions about the Task Force, Harry made a neutral noise, neither confirming or denying. There was an ink smudge that had somehow got on the bridge of Harry’s nose and Draco reached out to rub it off.

“I could take a break,” Harry said, and suddenly the focus of all that attention was on Draco.

“Would you like a glass of water?” Draco said. Harry’s eyes flashed. Draco couldn’t tell whether Harry liked or hated it when he acted like it was his home. But he reacted and that’s all that mattered.

“Tea? Coffee? Maybe a book?” Draco said, drawing it out. Draco wanted to hear him say what he was thinking. 

“Come here,” Harry muttered. Harry pulled Draco into his lap and looked up at him, waiting for permission. Harry wasn’t shy about kissing so it wasn’t kissing he wanted. 

“Not in the living room again,” Draco said. He’d missed healing a carpet burn last time and one of the other Trainees spotted it in the changeroom and snickered. Harry stood up holding Draco and turned to the stairs. 

“We’re wizards, Harry,” Draco scoffed and apparated them both upstairs.They landed directly on Harry’s bed .

Draco was in one of his contemplative, thoughtful moods so he took his time with undressing them both. Harry’s body was broad, solid, golden and had more scars than Draco would have imagined. They were beautiful on him though. 

"Why do you still have all your scars?" A deeply personal question, but it had been bothering him. Harry had the money to take them away. 

"To remember. Why are all of yours gone?" Harry asked. 

Turnabout is fair play, Draco supposed. Harry must have noted the lack of marks on his chest. He must be curious about it, given their history. 

"I didn't need any more reminders," Draco answered honestly. 

Harry, from the beginning, seemed to trust him right away. Draco wasn’t sure how Harry marked him as changed before he even believed it. Trust made it easier to know that even if this wasn’t love yet, it came honestly. Draco wasn’t certain what this really was for him. 

Draco refused to be hurried along with Harry’s kisses. He wanted to take Harry apart slowly with his lips, tongue, teeth, fingers and cock. He wanted to be inside him and have him inside. He wanted to taste him. So he did. 

Harry was beautiful in every way he could imagine. He seemed a bit bewildered by Draco’s insistence. But if Harry thought it was strange he didn’t say anything about it, just ‘yes’, ‘please’, ‘more’ and then brokenly, ‘Draco’.

He committed to memory the sound when Harry was getting too close writhing on Draco’s fingers, the taste of the skin behind his ear, the scent of their sweat mingling and how it felt when he finally let go the one way he was allowed.

For now, this was enough. 

_April 17, 2006_

Draco was exhausted. Between Healer training, writing quick preliminary reports for the Task Force and seeing Harry, he barely caught his breath. 

If Harry was going to tire of this sordid affair eventually, he wanted everything he could get in the meantime. He had never been a fixation before and he wasn’t sure he liked it, but he would take Harry however he could have him. 

“Harder,” Harry grunted. 

“I’m going as hard as I can,” Draco said, muscles straining. 

“More,” Harry insisted. 

“I’m trying,” Draco said.

Then he laid on the ground in Harry's makeshift workshop, sweating profusely. Harry eyed a wood joint on the crib to see if it was perfectly flush. Harry was very excited about the project. A week ago they’d gone all the way to South Glamorgan to pick the right planks. 

“I’m not built for manual labour. Why can’t you use a spell?” Draco complained. 

Then his vision was filled with Harry’s grinning face. Harry was pouring sweat too but he looked good doing it, all tousled and glowing like a wet dream. Draco felt like a wet noodle.

“Doesn’t work. I can’t feel if it’s lined up correctly when I use magic,” Harry explained patiently. He had explained several times already. 

“You’re a dictator,” Draco said.

Harry rewarded him with a kiss on the cheek. Harry buried his face in his neck and sniffed deeply. Draco was going to complain about what a base, horrid thing it was to do, but unfortunately his body hadn’t got the memo and was responding in a way Harry would be well aware of. 

“Mmmm, you smell like the hospital,” Harry teased. Harry lightly bit on the column of his neck and a little frisson of pleasure passed through him.

“Sherlock Holmes is on the case,” Draco drawled. For some reason, Harry always responded very well to that tone. Some sort of leftover psychosexual thing from their school days. 

“I’m never going to get used to you doing that,” Harry said, shaking his head and smiling.

“Doing what?” Draco asked. 

“Sprinkling in Muggle references,” Harry said. 

“You won’t be debauching me on a sawdust covered floor in any case,” Draco said smoothly, rolling to stand. Harry always gave him room as if he knew he didn’t like feeling trapped. Harry stood up himself and offered a hand up.

They ate, though it was early for supper for Harry on his day off. 

“I’ll be up in a minute. Why don’t you go while I monitor the washing up?” Harry said.

Draco got to the stairs and decided to Apparate to the top rather than climb them. He could rally around for sex, he supposed. But it wasn’t until his tempus charm went off the next morning that he realized Harry had deliberately led him to sleep. Draco silenced his spell and took a few minutes to enjoy being wrapped in Harry’s warmth and grey linen. 

_April 20, 2006_

Three hooded men in black robes caught him walking during his lunch break in the hallway outside of the lunchroom. He wasn’t practiced at using defensive magic anymore. He stunned one and broke another one’s nose throwing a decent jab. But soon enough they converged on him and bound his hands. One fumbled in his pocket for a small coin. A portkey shouldn’t work in St Mungo’s but this one did. 

A black hood was placed over his head as they arrived with a drawstring a touch too tight around his neck. He saw a flash of spring leaves, rolling hills, and a few sheep dotted on the horizon. It was colder too. So they must be North somewhere. An international portkey was unlikely. 

Draco tried to think. There had been a faint red bubble dome covering the property.

“Where are you taking me?” Draco asks. No harm in trying. One of them punched him in a kidney for his trouble. Draco fell to his knees and almost toppled over without his hands to balance him. 

“That’s...not very friendly,” he wheezed. 

“ _Silencio_ ,” one of the hooded men said.

Draco was able to wriggle his fingers and undo the spell without them noticing, but he was a little offended that they didn’t even bother with something more complicated than a first year spell. They entered somewhere that smelt of mothballs and lavender. Draco was thrown to a rough hardwood floor with a scratchy blanket and heard a door slam shut.

It was dark and the space was small and he was trapped and they were going to—no. Draco shook his head. He felt around the room he was in blindly. It was a room and not a cupboard. If he kept his breathing deep and even, the fabric on his head wasn’t so bad. They might hurt him but they were giving him time. Time meant he could think.

_Unknown_

Someone came by to give him a bowl of gruel. They uncovered his head for the fifteen minutes he was allocated to eat and drink water. The slop was generally flavourless. The water tasted vaguely metallic and someone always watched him. They changed the person regularly to prevent him from trying to ingratiate himself. Hilarious. 

It was an empty rough wooden cottage. Draco had assumed that they were denying him a bed and chair, but there were none. From guards marching him outside to a copse of trees to do his business, he didn’t think there was a loo either. 

“Porridge again?” he said to the woman guarding him during his third meal. “Any jam?”

“Shut up,” she said. There was something familiar about her, but she wore a Death Eater style mask and it was hard to make out anything but brown eyes and dull dishwater hair that sat limply on her black cloak. 

Draco swore he would never wear another black cloak in his life if he escaped. He was sick of the sight of them. 

“Does being a Death Eater come with a pension this time around?” Draco asked between bites. Undercooked and burnt groats with no sugar. What a treat. 

“All I got was a month in Azkaban and five years with no magic. You on the other hand, are probably headed for two decades in Azkaban. My father died there, you know.”

“You never knew when to shut up,” she remarked. He knew her voice. She was his year, Slytherin. 

“Tracey Davis, as I live and breathe,” Draco said sarcastically. He knew he could identify her if she spoke for long enough. Seemingly remembering this was a hostage situation, she vanished the rest of his meal and hexed his mouth shut before forcing the hood back over his head. 

_Unknown_

Two people came by and woke him up roughly.

“Time for you to answer some questions,” one of them said. They pulled the hood halfway up his face, forced his mouth open and dropped something on his tongue. Draco tried to spit, but they covered his nose until he swallowed. 

“ _Imperio_. Sit still. What do you know about the Auror operation? Who is on it?”

Draco had never mastered throwing off an Imperius, so he sat still even though he was shaking inside. 

“They never told me anything. Harry Potter. Dunno the rest. ” He slurred. They must have given him three times the dose needed. 

“One question at a time,” a second speaker said. 

Veritaserum only revealed what was top of mind. Draco had used his occlumency to block whatever he could when he arrived, knowing it would eventually come to this. He was left with particular memories. Harry caressing Draco’s temple when he thought he was asleep. The way he’d looked that day in the bookshop.

“Tell me about Harry Potter.” Draco gave them an entire treatise on Harry Potter’s forearms. He got a slap across the face for his trouble. Draco felt dizzy. They could poison him using that much Veritaserum. 

“I don’t think he knows anything,” the second one said. 

“Let’s see.”

One of them pulled the hood off. From the dark sliver under the gap of the door it was nighttime. Draco caught his breath. 

“We should strip your magic now.” The first one was taller. He held a tarnished silver filigree pocket watch that felt familiar. Even though he couldn’t access the memory of that feeling with his shields in place, he knew it was bad. The first one bent and held the pocket watch to him and Draco felt a violent pulling worse than any Cruciatus curse.

He hadn’t been released from the Imperius, so Draco sat immobile while excruciating pain radiated through him. He gritted his teeth against the pain, feeling his face turn red. Tears flooded his face. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please, please.” Draco heard someone plead faintly and then realized it was him.

All at once, all the spells were released and Draco lay on the floor breathing hard. All this to remake the world. 

“We’ll have time for blood traitors when we’re done with the mudbloods,” the second one said. Draco tried to catch his eye, but he looked away. 

“Potter will come for his pet for certain.” 

Well, Draco certainly hoped so. After they slammed the door, Draco decided no matter what, he needed to get out of there. There was a dull ache in his chest and the little wandless magic he could manage wouldn’t come to him anymore.The pain in his wrists was duller than what he’d recently experienced, so he slowly started to pull at the ropes. 


	16. xvi. Dangerous Liaisons

_April 20, 2006_

Harry was going to go out of his mind. How could there be no trace of Draco? How could he have been kidnapped out of St Mungo's? Was it his fault? It was, wasn’t it.

“Harry, you have to wait until we know where he is,” Shacklebolt was saying while Harry paced. 

Harry did not like the sound of that at all. 

“What do they even want with him? They’ve been experimenting on muggleborns. He’s a pureblood!” Harry said. Harry was aware this shouldn’t be happening to anyone, but Draco was his...was his...

He knew he should calm down and focus. He should be able to solve this problem. He should have put a tracking charm or three on every item of clothing Draco owned and followed him around St Mungo’s and glared at all of his patients and fought all of them and protected him and...

“Go home. We’ll call you once we have a better idea,” Zacharias said calmly. And it was the fact that someone who didn’t care much for him was showing concern that made him pause. 

“I’ll apparate you home,” Penny said. She was kind and firm in steering him to their apparition point behind the building and even more so as they landed on the doorstep of 12 Grimmauld Place. Penny cast a Patronus—a dove—that rushed down the street. 

“Who was that for?” Harry asked. 

“You need someone here,” was all Penelope said. 

Embarrassingly, Harry had idly wondered why she worked in Special Crimes if she seemed so fragile. Penny sat him down, made a cup of tea splashed with whiskey and waited with him. She was silent, but it was a warm comfortable silence while Harry kept having to remember he was anchored in a human body. She had a resilient, flexible strength he had mistaken for weakness. 

His Floo activated and Ron came out first, followed by Hermione. Ron reached out to let her steady. Hermione looked a little off-colour. She was larger every time he saw her and he was surprised there was a whole month to go before she gave birth. 

“You called Hermione and Ron?” Harry asked Penny. 

“Of course Penelope did!” Ron said, only mildly outraged.

“I’ll be off then,” Penny said smoothly. 

Harry couldn’t think of what to say to them about the situation so he opened his mouth and said, “I think the crib will be done by next week. Sorry.”

“We didn’t come here to check on the crib, Harry,” Hermione said gently. ‘We came to check on you.”

She came around his right side and sat next to him, leaning on him. Ron sat on his left side.

“Oh,” Harry said. 

“We only just heard about what happened,” Ron said. 

Harry nodded. That made sense. According to the mantle it was three pm and the incident had happened at one. Two hours was a long time. Too short to get a trace, but he was worried about what would be done in that time. 

“We’re sorry about Draco,” Hermione added. 

“I saw him last night,” Harry said. He was thinking about how Draco looked when he really threw his head back and laughed. He was thinking of the cool grey of his eyes when assessing something. He was thinking whether he’d ever see either again. Harry put his face in his hands. 

“You were getting serious,” Ron said. It was a statement and not a question, but Harry nodded. That much was true on his end, no matter how Draco really felt. He should have pressed him.

“I...shouldn’t have got him involved,” Harry admitted, guilt washing over him. 

“Now’s not the time for that. If it were Ron, I would...I would...” Hermione trailed off. 

“I would burn the whole world down if it were Hermione,” Ron said resolutely. Harry could feel them look at each other and then turn their attention to him once again. 

“I know it’s hard but you have to wait,” Ron continued. 

“Should I stay behind when they find him?” Harry asked. 

“I don’t think you’ll be able to,” Hermione said. “Do you want to hear more baby names?”

Harry nodded. 

_April 23, 2006 15:13_

“Harry, we’ve found him. Very faint traces of magic but he’s on an old Wizarding farm in Shetland,” Kingsley said. 

“He’s alive?” Harry asked. 

“As far we can tell,” Kingsley said. “I’m only bringing you on for extraction, you hear? You’re coming along to take Draco safely to his home where we’ve got a Healer on standby. Purely defensive.”

Harry nodded vigorously. He would comply with any conditions if it meant they wouldn’t leave him behind. 

“Don’t lose your head, Harry,” Kingsley said. He patted him on the back. 46 minutes to go. He went to go find Zacharias and Penny to get briefed and encountered Athena instead. 

“I wasn’t going to let you all go without me,” Athena said. She glared at him as if expecting him to bring up that she had walked off the investigation. 

“Brief me,” Harry said. 

“Indirect spells only. Aim at the ground. We don’t know how many of them might have the absorption magic,” Athena said. 

_April 3, 2006 16:11_

Harry was searching the cottage where Draco was supposed to be held. Nothing. He ran back outside and saw a flash in the distance. Before he could be sure it was Draco on the horizon, a jet of red light shot out and the person went down. Harry ran, firing some of the nastier curses he knew by instinct. 

It was Draco lying in the muck, halfway up the hill. He flipped Draco over, checking his wrists for a pulse. There were vicious looking rope welts around his wrists and Harry hated the sight of what they had done. As he watched carefully, he finally saw Draco’s chest rise and fall. He cast a stasis charm with a little too much force but it settled well. 

Harry picked Draco up in a fireman’s carry and ran. He was running practically blind for the edge of the property that wasn’t covered under the giant hexed security bubble they had generated with their magic. It was a kilometre or so away. 

“Stop!” A man shouted. 

Harry stunned him without a second thought and kept running. A yellow jet of light shot towards his face and he dropped into the mud rolling unconscious Draco onto his back. Harry fired off two more stunners, dark red with intent, blindly. He knew they hit but added two more lightning spells to the ground where he thought they had stood, just in case. He stood up, slung Draco over his shoulders again and began to sprint. His breath was coming fast and wild but he had to reach the edge and get him out. 

The ground was pockmarked and hilly and awful. Harry was suddenly grateful for all those runs, because they had taught him to stay steady. He ducked and held up the Portkey and felt someone grab onto his trouser leg. He tried to kick them off but they held on steady when they arrived at gates at Malfoy Manor. The sudden weight made them all fall, and Harry saved his cushioning charm for Draco while he crashed to the driveway so hard his teeth rattled. 

“I’ve got Harry, Malfoy Manor,” the woman said, speaking into her wrist. The fuck she did. He stunned her, but nothing happened and within seconds two more people had arrived. Draco was lying peacefully on the grass. 

“Take both of them,” A tall man said. 

Two of them advanced, wands raised. Harry switched his wand to his left hand. He was slightly weaker as it wasn’t his preferred casting hand, but he could push Draco through the gates with his right wandlessly, if need be. The Manor’s wards would protect Draco from further harm once he was through the gates.

He hit all three in rapid succession with a Bodybind which they shook off. He followed up with a nasty fire hex which hit. Whatever shielding they had wasn’t perfect. He cast thick ropes to bind them. For good measure, he melted the asphalt slightly until they all sank at least three inches.

He picked up Draco once again and saw Narcissa Malfoy on the Manor’s doorstep but didn’t stop running until he was at the door. 

“He’s here!” Narcissa said.

A tall broad Healer said gently, “We'll need you to let go, won’t we?” Something about the way she spoke was soothing so he did let them float Draco, though he kept walking alongside. A Mediwitch joined. He told them as much information as he could remember, conscious he was babbling. 

“Healer...?” Harry said. 

“Head Healer Forsyth Cummins, sir,” she responded.

“And Mediwitch...” 

“Mediwitch Janine Routh,” the other responded. 

“They can’t work with us here,” Narcissa said quietly. She took his hand and led him into their kitchens. She sat him on the chair and started casting. She cleaned his robes, glasses and then took a wet cloth to begin cleaning little cuts he hadn’t noticed and healing them one by one. It was comforting in a strange way. 

“I’ve promised Molly and Andromeda that I’d take care of you like my own,” Narcissa said softly. “So many of your people called to check on me with the situation with Draco. They knew that...” she trailed off. 

Her magic sort of felt like Draco’s but different. Elegant and calm like her wandwork. 

“Sorry we had to meet again like this,” Harry said. And he was sorry he hadn’t sent her an owl even though he had been worse than useless. She might have appreciated speaking to the Auror who put her son in danger. 

“You brought him home to me, and that’s all that matters,” she said finally. Narcissa was beautiful but not nearly as cold as he remembered. She had lovely crow’s feet, a sprinkling of freckles across her nose and the same eyes as Draco. 

“I look forward to getting to know you,” Narcissa said. 

“Mrs. Malfoy? Auror Potter?” Mediwitch Routh called. They both stood up. “He’s awake for a bit before he needs to rest. He’s in stable condition. Dehydrated, magical core seems to have been slightly destabilized and depleted but he’s well on his way to healing. We can’t heal too much at once so he has some superficial cuts.”

Draco was sitting up, pale against white silky sheets. He was awake and the most beautiful thing Harry had ever seen, even bruised and cut. Draco spotted his mother first and smiled at her.

“Ten minutes,” said Healer Cummins.

“Mum!” Draco said.

“May I?” Narcissa asked. But she didn’t wait for the healer’s answer and threw her arms around him. They stayed like that for a few brief moments and Harry watched. He was aching desperately to hold him too, but this was important and he could wait. For all he knew, Draco was about to be furious with him.

“There’s someone else for you,” Narcissa said. Harry was still standing awkwardly in the doorway when Draco spotted him. His smile became much more shy. 

“Be careful with him,” Healer Cummins said. But while Harry tried to gently wrap his arms around him, Draco was the one who crushed him to his chest. Harry tried to come up with any words to sum up how he felt. 

“Draco,” Harry said. 

Draco kissed him softly once. Harry kissed him back harder.

“He’s a patient, Auror Potter,” Mediwitch Routh said. They had an audience too, and he watched Draco turn that lovely shade of pink.

“Sorry Healer Cummins,” Draco murmured. 

“I’ve caught half your year trying to shag each other in break rooms. Some kissing won’t kill me. I have three kids. I’ve done it myself,” she said. Something about the gruffness in her tone sounded like affection.

“Ten minutes are up, you’ll see him in the morning.”

Harry wondered if a wizarding house that was old enough could talk because Narcissa cocked her head to one side and said, “Pansy and Theo are here.”

Other people he hoped he would meet under different circumstances maybe.

“You look a fright,” Pansy said to him. Then to Narcissa. “Is Draco okay?” 

“He’s fine, thanks to Harry. He’s recovering,” Narcissa said. 

_May 4, 2006 02:44_

Harry was staying up just in case. Athena had let him know the operation was a success with only a few escapees. They’d managed to round up all the dangerous items for later study. Minister Dale Steel had done a triumphant press conference with particular emphasis that he had arrested his own senior staff in the pursuit of justice.

He knew the Healing team would be back in the morning and they had set alarms, but Harry felt responsible. 

So he was wearing out the Manor’s hallway carpet pacing back and forth. 

“Harry.” The whisper came from Draco’s makeshift hospital bed in the study. Draco was sitting up with a book and a small ball of light that he was reading by.

“Do you need me to call them? Are you in pain?” 

“No, I could hear you outside,” Draco whispered back. 

“I’m sorry,” Harry said. He could guess what Draco had been through based on the reports even though he’d been banished from the room after breathing down the neck of the Auror they sent to take a statement. 

“Not your fault,” Draco said. 

It seemed hard for him to speak and Draco had white bandages wound around his chest. He gestured for Harry to come closer again until he was pressed against the railing. Harry went to kiss him on the forehead and Draco tilted his head last minute so he caught his lips. Harry tried to keep it gentle but there was a tinge of desperation in making sure Draco was alive and knew how he felt and was here. Draco tasted like awful potions and Harry did not care.

“After this, you should meet Andromeda and Teddy. And we’ll have dinner with your mum. We should meet each other’s friends. And you should move into Grimmauld with me,” Harry blurted all at once. 

Draco smiled faintly. 

“Figures I’d almost have to die too, before you’d commit,” Draco said archly. 

When Harry’s weird choked laughter turned into tears, Draco put an arm on his. When Draco fell asleep, Harry transfigured a couch and laid there until morning, watching him sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading. I appreciate it. 
> 
> There are two codas I've written in the series. I've reordered them, so the first is an epilogue and the third is Pansy/Theo. 
> 
> [tumblr](https://skeptiquewrites.tumblr.com/)


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